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Workers tweet away £325m of time in the office
Mark Prigg, Science and Technology Editor26 Oct 2009
Major London firms are banning employees from accessing Twitter as it emerged that the site is costing businesses in the capital almost £325million a year in lost productivity.
In a survey published today, 59 per cent of office workers in the capital admitted using the microblogging site, spending an average of 56 minutes a week reading and sending tweets.
Twitter, along with Facebook and other social networking sites, has already been banned by large firms and some City banks. Hillingdon council requires staff to sign a code of conduct limiting their time on the site.
Last week singer Lily Allen, one of its most followed users, quit Twitter claiming her obsession with it had got so out of hand her boyfriend had made her choose between him and the site.
She signed off with the message: "I am a neo-luddite, goodbye." Twitter has said that London is the city where it has the most users. Philip Wicks, a consultant at IT firm Morse, which carried out the study, said: "The popularity of these sites has grown considerably over the last couple of years but with it has come the temptation to visit them during office hours."
Workers have also been caught out after posting messages about their boss, colleagues, or their firm's work. Currys, PC World and Virgin Atlantic all came under the spotlight recently after employees abused customers on social networking sites.
"Twitter has become a real addiction for people," said Tom Wiggins of gadget magazine Stuff. "The messages are so short, people think they can get away with just a quick look. However, it can really eat up time. I think the Facebook ban also drove people to Twitter. It has the same voyeuristic appeal."
