According to a new study, Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing (”WILB”) is not actually the massive threat to productivity that many managers think it is. In fact, this study concludes that individuals who take a “reasonable” amount of time during work hours to browse online may actually be helping themselves be more productive. The theory goes: give your mind a break and you’re more likely to return to the tasks at-hand mentally refreshed and rarin’ to go. Sounds good, right?
Well, there are several obvious objections to this almost-too-convenient way of thinking about personal internet use at work. One is raised directly by the people who conducted the study: the possibility of not being able to keep internet usage at a healthy level. They state that if the use is more than “reasonable” (which they define as 20% of your time or less), the user may have “internet addiction,” which will actually inhibit productivity.
Another objection you could raise is that this study doesn’t discuss which kinds of work activities you can/should interrupt with personal internet surfing. After all, isn’t there a difference between stopping a week-long project to give your brain a rest and tuning out during mandatory sales training taking place via web conferencing? At iLinc, we believe it’s possible to offer highly effective and engaging online training that actually ensures knowledge transfer, and we’re willing to bet that most virtual classroom instructors wouldn’t be too happy to know that their students or employees were engaging in WILB instead of paying attention!
And that’s we created the iLinc Participation Meter. This feature allows the session leaders of any online meeting to get visibility into the various engagement levels of attendees. So, as the organizer of a webinar or corporate training session, you’d be able to tell if the participants were:
- actively engaged by raising their hand or interacting with others in the session
- watching my presentation
- not at all focused on my presentation (and likely surfing the net!)
As far as we know, a little harmless, leisurely website browsing never hurt anyone. But when it matters and you need your team to focus on content you are delivering, tools like the Participation Meter can help you ensure that your efforts are successful.
Posted under Industry Buzz, Web Conferencing
This post was written by Christine Olivas on April 6, 2009
I gotta say that video conferencing is very useful especially in business industry because sometimes business people had to travel to different locations around the world in order to sign their business agreements through this technology they do not have to leave their
offices, it make it possible for them to connect with their partners worldwide.