Facebook: Productivity Boost or Bane?
Regular readers will have seen how I saved a big percentage of time by cutting out unnecessary distractions. One area I am struggling with though is keeping up with my contacts. Actually, to be more specific, Facebook.
Facebook has the potential to benefit productivity. It keeps you up to date with your contacts all in one nice and tidy space. On one page you can get a good overview of what your friends are up to, and get birthday reminders, and such. While I also use LinkedIn, Facebook is much more active with people sharing far more information than just their contact details and where they are working right now.
The problem is that benefit also has a downside. Richness of information and regular updates can become overwhelming:
- Random email notifications - You get notified with an email whenever someone sends you a message or does something where your interaction might be required. The more contacts you have the more of these you will get.
- Adding “friends” who I don’t really know - Bloggers meet (actually or virtually) lots of people. Some of those will want to connect on Facebook. While you will want to keep up with people the sheer number of people who add friends randomly cascades. Right now Robert Scoble has 5,000 friends. How does he get anything done?
- Friends who are particularly noisy - Talking of Mr Scoble, he updates a lot. (In)famously so. The problem with noisy friends is there is so much cruft in your updates you can miss things that turn out to be important. All you can do is tune them down or drop them as friends. Not great.
- Trivial but fun applications - Self-control is not one of my best attributes. Somebody uses a Facebook Zombie application to “bite me” and I am going to check it out. Another friend ask me to compare music and film tastes, I sign up. Anything new and shiny has the potential to send my productivity into a dive. Problem is, Facebook is full of this stuff and my friends lap it up … and send them to me.
- Keeping up with discussions - Facebook is a social site. It is a social site populated with your friends. Friends talk. A lot. Just what we need, another place to talk about stuff instead of getting on with work!
- Yet another messaging venue - Kind of related to the above, Facebook is a place where people communicate. As if email, phone, skype and instant messaging were not enough, we can also get bombarded with Facebook messages. And obviously because you have declared these people as friends it feels rude to ignore them.
The thing about this stuff is it is only going to get worse. That bit about friends being noisy? Some people are doing it on purpose, because Facebook can help build your profile and get your stuff some attention. It’s called Social Media Optimization. It could be, particularly in the circles I run in, that it isn’t just noise it’s optimization.
All this optimization or self promotion will just add to the social media fatigue.
I’m not convinced it is even that great a promotional tool for content because there are so few outbound links, Facebook is after all a walled-garden with very few leaks. It might be a good way to promote yourself but in the end I think this sort of “push” promotion will just annoy.
There is a huge community on Facebook, and it is a patently visible that there really are tons of people on there. Many businesses are testing the waters for their marketing. One of those businesses was a small concern called Walmart, who dropped thousands of dollars on a campaign. For those with the time and inclination to max it out I can see the opportunities are there for the taking. I’m just not sure I can keep up with it.
Are you a Facebook fan or a Facebook doubter? Let me know in the comments …
Related posts:
- Enough of the Facebook Feeding Frenzy!
- FaceBook Finally Gets Customer Focused
- The Future of Privacy
- Why We Need an OpenID of Social Networks
- Stop Drinking from the Fire Hose
Posted on September 4, 2007 by Chris Garrett
Filed Under Productivity
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15 Responses to “Facebook: Productivity Boost or Bane?”
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I can definitely see that Facebook could be useful for business, but to be honest I have pretty much kept it for personal stuff. That way I can just stay off of there during the day or else I would never get any work done! Instead I just spend my days on MyBlogLog, reading my Bloglines and Stumblin around and justify it by it being “work!”
I’m thinking you have the right approach. Not abandon it completely but stick to a couple of times a week and purely for leisure
The debate rages. How prevalent is cheating on a loved one through Facebook/MySpace/AIM? check it out.. http://coedmagazine.com/sex/2219
I just recently signed up for Facebook a couple of weeks ago and was shocked by the number of people I know who were already using it. I could see myself developing a serious addiction to it, honestly, so I’m limiting myself to off-work hours only.
I might use it to passively promote my business (pulling in my RSS, etc.) but definitely don’t have time to do anything active; I tend to agree that “pushing” could backfire anyway.
So short answer: I’m still kind of undecided.
I pull in my RSS and answer other peoples messages, wish people happy birthday, but like you I think it would be all too easy to get sucked right into it
Personally I find the flood of emails that Facebook sends a bit overwhelming. And that’s after I turned off most of their notifications.
I understand the site is very popular with some prominent folks so I generally keep my frustrations with Facebook to myself.
Chris, I’m experimenting with various sites and networks as so many people swear by them. Early days yet and I’m still not sure which ones I’ll stick with and which ones I’ll drop.
First time I went to try Facebook I didn’t like it - couldn’t work out how best to use it and I worry about inadvertently sending out additional e-mail alerts to friends. However, I’m going to keep on experimenting and partly/mainly for business use - perhaps there are people on facebook who’d be interested in what I do who won’t find me via my blog, or who would feel more comfortable leaving a comment or asking a question there.
As someone pointed out to me blogs can seem a bit cliquey esp as it tends to be other bloggers who leave comments, make interesting points etc. Now I know there’s a lot of people who have blogs - but there’s also a lot who don’t… so I’m going to give it a try.
Having to log on and check for messages in multiple places is my main bug-bear just now though.
Joanna
@Chris - Yes I have found some people really *really* like Facebook and can’t believe I don’t to the same level
@Joanna - Blogs can be cliquey, yeah, but most bloggers will warm up given chance
I’m still giving Facebook a try, just not much of my time, I won’t be beaten by it 
Chris G - oh totally, I’m a blogging addict and love taking part in conversations with amazing bloggers all over the place. I guess I was trying to think about the people who don’t find it quite as amazing as I do… and challenging myself to think that maybe facebook is more their thing. So the reason for me investing time there isn’t for my benefit, but for the potential to connect with a different set of customers, supporters and clients
For example it may be that blogging is a great medium for me because I love writing and words. Facebook on the other hand doesn’t exactly leave room for self-expression… but maybe that allows some people more room to network and connect without having to struggle to find the right words?
Joanna
Ah, with you. Yes, I think you are right, there is a medium for every web user and I think Facebook will fit some people a lot better than blogs
Totally agree with the noisy friend comment. Worse is “noisy, I don’t really know you friends.” You just have to remove them….
Yeah I am getting quite a few people now friending me just to promote their stuff. It’s just rude
I also find it difficult to keep my facebook profile up to date. I do like facebook, I think it is a great concept, it’s just getting time.
Yeah finding time for it can be tricky when you are busy, perhaps that is why it is still mostly students
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