Using social media constantly on workplace creates many negative effects that can destroy your professional career or in other case we will say using or not using social media is a hotly contested debate in corporate circles. While some are in favour of occasional peeps into their personal social media pages while at work as a means of recreation, others follow a strict no-social media policy during work hours. The choice is your own to make, but allow us to show you a few negative impacts of social media that could seriously affect your performance and satisfaction levels at work.
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The more you use social media, the more you want to use it. These websites are designed to engross users like no other past time ever has in history. It does not do much for you in terms of real fulfilment and keeps you occupied in a rather unproductive manner.
You certainly don’t want to be thinking of how many new likes your latest travel picture got while involved in an important chore at work. Not only does it make your work slower but also increases the chances of errors, consequently affecting your overall performance.
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The most obvious of disadvantages to using social media during work hours is that it eats up into the precious time that you should be putting into making your work stand out. When at work, you should concentrate on doing the best you can, if quick and steady growth is what you aim for in your professional life. Wasting time uploading, browsing and analysing your personal social media activity will slow your progress down in the long run. So nip this problem at the bud and be your productive best at the work station.
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Your colleagues do not need to know about all aspects of your personal life. When using social media at work, you tend to disclose things you probably should not. When this happens, people begin to (sometimes sub-consciously) judge you by your personal life and choices instead of how you perform at work or how your behaviour towards your co-workers is. A great way to avoid this is to refrain from using social media at the workplace or with colleagues in general. The more professional you keep your business relationships; the better it will be for you in the long run.
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Teenagers and college students aside, grown adults too are known to become seriously jealous of their peers getting more social media attention than they are. At the workplace, this is an even more dangerous trend than it is in society in general.
If you are jealous of your co-worker’s social media popularity, or vice versa, it begins to affect your work relationships and eventually your team performances etc. Therefore, keeping your corporate life outside of your social media activity will do you a great favour.
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Social media does get those pubescent instincts out! Even a most sorted person, when under the throes of social media stardom, becomes an attention-seeking brat. The desire to get attention doesn’t just stay confined to the digital social space after a while and starts spilling into other aspects of your life, including your attitude at work. So if you can, keep your work life free of social media’s interferences.
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It’s been proven time and again that social media messes with our minds. Paradoxical to what it calls itself, excessive use of social media makes us less social in the real world and gives us an ephemeral and most times, fake, sense of well-being.
If you rely on social media to get validation on a daily basis, chances are that you are already, many a time unknowingly, suffering from issues such as low-esteem. Making an effort to lower your dependence on social media, especially while you are at the workplace, will help you get into a healthier mindset.
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People addicted to social media tend to become more and more dependent on the activities in that virtual world for seeking gratification and validation. Before you know it, ‘likes’ become a measure of your self-worth and ‘shares’ begin to define how important you are to the rest of the world. A small thing like your post going viral can make you feel on top of the world, and an equally frivolous event like your Instagram pictures not getting enough of a following can make you feel unimaginably low. All this points at psychological trouble and you shouldn’t let it find place in your world.
Recapitulating, weigh the cons of using social media at work and make a smart choice for yourself. A few moments of virtual fun are certainly not worth sacrificing a healthy career growth for!
