Seeing others' social media posts can affect your work performance
What's the story
Researchers have confirmed what many of us anticipated — the fear of missing out (or FOMO in colloquial language) after seeing social media posts of others is real. It is prominent to the extent that it adversely affects your job performance.
To arrive at the conclusion, 56 auditors from four international accounting firms were experimented with.
Those who saw fun pictures didn't perform well.
What happened
Social media perceptions can effect job performance
Titled "Social Media Content and Social Comparisons: An Experimental Examination of their Effect on Audit Quality," the study was featured in Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory, released by the American Accounting Association.
John Lauck, co-author of the study and an assistant professor of accounting at Louisiana Tech University, said it's already known how social media affects thoughts.
This new study focuses on social media's implications on work, he explained.
Statement
People share best versions of their lives, that affects others
Separately, Stephen Kuselias, the corresponding author of the study and an assistant professor of accounting at Providence College, said people sharing the best part of their lives on social media, can skew perceptions "of the quality of our lives relative to the lives of other people."
"We wanted to know how that might interfere with the quality of work performance," he said.
Study
Participants were divided into three groups, shown different pictures
For the experiment, the participants were divided into three groups — members of each team were exposed to a different kind of social media content.
The first group saw images of people enjoying themselves in public places, the second group was shown the same images, but people weren't having fun, and the third lot saw the first set of images and some work-associated pictures.
Findings
Those who saw fun images struggled at work: Study
"Specifically, we found that seeing images of people engaging in social activities made study participants worse at collecting evidence relevant to an audit," Kuselias said.
It was also found that seeing work-related content canceled the effects of seeing jubilant pictures of others.
Summer Williams, the co-author of the study and an associate professor of psychology at Westfield State University, said the findings are applicable to most businesses.
Monitoring SM
Researchers underscored employers can't oversee employees' social media access
The researchers hope this study increases awareness about the link between social media and work.
"This work adds to what other studies have found about the adverse impact social media has on stress, emotions, and other aspects of our lives that can affect us in the workplace," Williams said.
However, those involved in the study underlined there is no realistic way to monitor social media consumption at work.