Sophos polled 500 Facebook users to find out how often they accessed or checked the popular social networking site from work and found that while 37.2 per cent only visited the site once or twice a day, eight per cent admitted using it up to ten times a day, and an astonishing 14.8 per cent, about one in seven, confessed to being logged onto Facebook almost permanently during their working day.
About 40 per cent of respondents said they never accessed Facebook from work, only using the social networking phenomena from home.
“The results show that more than one fifth of these Facebook users are actually Facebook abusers,” said Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley.
“They're seriously struggling to tear themselves away from the website when they should be concentrating on their job,” he said.
"Several trade unions have spoken out in the site's defence, suggesting that employers should put more trust in their workforce, and clearly the majority of people are using the site in moderation. The problem is that a 20 percent addiction rate equates to an awful lot of loafing, while there's also the likelihood that the abusers could ruin it for the other rule-abiding users.”
According to Sophos, the survey results add weight to growing fears that sites such as Facebook are having a hugely detrimental impact on business productivity. Employment law firm Peninsula recently estimated that 233 million hours are lost every month in the UK alone as a result of employees using social networking sites.
"Many companies are now aware that Facebook brings with it a series of security concerns, particularly the risk of employees inadvertently revealing sensitive or confidential information to the wider world,” Mr Cluley said.
“When combined with the threat of an accompanying productivity slump, they may well decide that social-networking at work is simply more trouble than it's worth.”
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