Facebook, Twitter Actually Making Us More Productive

The lords of productivity bemoaned the rise of the Web in the workplace circa the late 90s. Now the same self-appointed deities are back and have none other than our favorite social darlings Facebook and Twitter in their collective sights. Last year a report from Nucleus Research indicated that Facebook steals one-and-a-half percent of total office productivity. A survey from Morse found that at-work social media use (want to bet it was mostly Facebook and Twitter?) cost UK companies US$2.2 billion a year.

These figures, as you would imagine, don’t tell a complete story. It seems that in the world of knowledge workers, particularly those involved in creative problem solving--like advertising creatives, designers, photographers et al--taking the occasional social networking break may not be the enemy. In fact, taking a step back from a project and crafting the perfect tweet on last night’s @craigyferg show may be just the break the active mind needs before heading back to the metaphorical grindstone.

“People are more successful if we force them to move away from a problem or distract them temporarily,” observe the authors of Creativity and the Mind, an important work on the psychology and neuroscience of creativity. They found that taking the occasional “mental-health” break not only makes one more of a happy camper, but enhances problem-solving skills by enhancing the ability to access memories in search of applicable clues and images.
See the latest issue of Wired for more.