Newspapers, a 19th century global social networking craze, could cost employers up to $5 billion a year in productivity.
The persistence of the “offline internet” in workplaces has resulted in more time-wasting by employees.
It could also open businesses to criminals and legal liability, analysis by internet security firm TPN says.
The data found if one employee spent an hour a day of company time reading newspapers, it could cost their employer more than $6200 a year.
Projected across the 800,000 businesses with one or more employees in Australia, this one wasted hour a day equalled productivity losses of more than $5 billion a year.
There are more than 2 million newspaper readers across the country, with reportedly more than 100 Australians joining the phenomenon each hour.
With many readers reading during work hours, productivity loss was not the only drawback, TPN CEO Cameron Reilly said.
“Criminals will no doubt be targeting newspaper readers as an attack mechanism because of (its) popularity and power as a platform,” Reilly said.
“It’s only a matter of time before a security loophole is discovered and exploited.”
Many companies were placing blanket bans on newspapers, created by some old rich white guy in 1786.
But account director Joan Smith from marketing communications agency Haypizzle, whose employees were reading newspapers, said the phenomena had reshaped the media landscape and was now regarded as a powerful business tool.
“It’s important for a marketing communications agency to be on the pulse with new and emerging social media platforms such as The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The New York Times,” Ms Smith said.
“Newspapers like The New York Times enable us to connect with our clients, media representatives and our 40 plus staff in our Sydney and Melbourne offices.”
Despite newspaper’s negative side, Reilly said it could also be a boon for business.
“A lot of enlightened employers are encouraging newspaper reading as part of the working experience because it makes people want to be at work longer,” he said.
“There needs to be awareness and education on the part of the employer as to what is the appropriate level of use.”
(This is a satirical post pointing out the level of bullshit being spread about Facebook by sites like News.com.au – link)
and the land-fill/ environmental wastage of this ‘off line internet’ is horrifying :-0
thank goodness we have the online world for a variety of opinions from informed individuals willing to spend selfless time updating us!
Nice one, Cam. I actually pinged you as a likely responder in my equivalent posts yesterday.
At least Ross Dawson got called and responded on social computing’s behalf. I bet there won’t be a follow-up series on social computing success stories though…
From my mind to your blog 🙂
Brilliant!
This is what struck me about that article that I too saw which was this one http://urltea.com/19sg:
800,000 businesses with more than 1 employee
230,000 Australian members of Facebook
“The report calculates that if an employee spends an hour each day on Facebook, it costs the company more than $6200 a year.”
Now some huge assumptions here:
1. Every Australian member of Facebook is working age
2. Every Aust. member has a job
3. Every Australian member is employed in a business with more then 2 employees
4. Every employee spends an hour on Facebook at work
5. Of those employees they all have internet access
Total bloody BS
Great post Cam. Read this on front page of Mx yesterday on way home and thought it was a total crock.
Very funny indeed!
But you missed the ‘green’ point…newspapers actually cost the environment big time!
Just think of the number of trees killed to be transformed into paper (although they might use recycled paper…the paper needed to be produced in the first place), then:
– the energy consumed to produce paper out of trees,
– the CO2 emissions created out of the production of paper,
– the CO2 emissions produced by the transport of paper,
– the energy consumed to produce newspapers out of paper,
– the CO2 emissions produced by the transport of newspapers,
– the CO2 emissions produced by the transport of newspapers,
trucked to the recycling plant,
– etc…you get the picture!
Most people would only read a few articles in the newspapers (unless they were born with them as one of the few sources of (mis)information. A genuine waste of the environment!
Very funny smartypants.
“Criminals will no doubt be targeting newspaper readers as an attack mechanism because of (its) popularity and power as a platform,†Reilly said.
Did you know there is an underground movement to *hack* traditional media? I’ve seen Goatse t-shirts on the front page of New York Times business page and Goatse logo on BBC Olympics site. Sneaking in hat tips to shock sites without the trad media realising. Amusing but naughty. 😀