Employees' use of social media for private reasons during working hours

The objectives of the study were to find out: Whether Icelandic organizations allowed open access to social media (SM), whether the respondents used SM for private reasons during working hours, which SM they used, how much time they devoted to such use, and what was the attitude of managers and the employees themselves towards such use. The respondents were asked to disclose whether they worked in the private or the public sector and the type of organization that they worked for. This was a two-dimensional study: A questionnaire sent to an internet panel and a telephone survey both based on a random sample selected from the National Registry in February 2013. A similar study has not been performed in Iceland before. Foreign studies of the same nature are not known, only related research. The main findings were that about half of the organizations allowed open access to SM, just below 50% of respondents took advantage of SM for personal use during working hours and the great majority used Facebook. Employees used a considerable part of their working hours for personal use of SM. The majority of respondents were of the opinion that managers objected to the use of SM during working hours and a larger majority believed that such use of themselves was unacceptable. The survey adds valuable information for a better understanding of the status of SM at places of work. The results could be of value to organizations that want to evaluate the pros and cons of SM for the organization.