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For years, public handwringing about the impact of social media on the minds and lives countless millions of teen users has dominated conversations about this increasingly prominent communications medium. Plenty of research suggests it can do real damage, and sites like Instagram have been forced to take steps that try to limit the harm the apps do. But it’s not just teens using social media, and a new report explores its use at work and its impact on the productivity. Its conclusions may prompt you to rethink if and exactly how you allow your staff to doomscroll through Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok and their ilk during office hours. The report, from the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, tried to work out which type of social media content caused the most upset in the office environment and how social content changed worker’s moods — potentially reducing their productivity — in separate experiments that returned very similar answers, industry news site HRDive notes. Firstly, if people were watching “attractive” social media content while at work—material like clothing fits — as well as typical family-life posts, workers’ moods shifted to feeling more confident and boosted ability to tackle their work tasks. But if they watched difficult materials, like politically charged posts or even “rage bait” content, workers were more anxious afterwards and were more likely to seek their own space away from colleagues — potentially damaging productivity and team working ability. At this point you may be slapping your forehead and muttering about how this is all just common sense. Featured Video An Inc.com Featured Presentation But it is important, if only for the following reason: the report cites earlier research that showed around 77 percent of U.S. workers regularly consume social media during work hours. That’s nearly eight in 10 people in your workforce, which means the type of content they’re consuming is going to impact your company’s productivity. The authors said their study “offers a practical contribution by providing a more balanced view of the benefits and/or drawbacks of employees participating in social media throughout their workdays.” They suggest that the study can provide a toolbox for “leaders and employees as to when and how to use social media as a motivational tool.” One simple example of this, they suggest, is that a manager could “support employees’ use of social media as a daily work break.” You may even think of it as the Insta-equivalent of a sneaky smoke break, for example. The fact that you’ve given explicit permission is also a boon, because it shows you understand the fascination of social media, and you’re not punishing people for slacking off work for a handful of minutes. The researchers go further though, and say that if you “directly encourage employees to focus on posts that they perceive as attractive or family-oriented because of their uplifting qualities” you may even be able to “enhance work productivity.” Admittedly you’d be fighting against human urges to watch different content, and the various apps’ algorithms which generally only care about keeping users watching, no matter the content. But it may be worth a try — especially if you tell them to proactively avoid contentious content during work hours to avoid productivity problems. If team tasks are on the agenda that day, tell your staff to leave watching social content until later, since that could lead to emotional withdrawal and weaken overall results. This may give savvy leaders some useful tips on how to keep employee distraction down, and maybe even keep workforce motivation up. But there’s another issue that may be taking over the average worker’s urge to watch endless TikTok reels: AI. AI tools can be fascinating, fun and distracting — just as they can be useful in the workplace. But a new report shows that the emerging issue of AI “workslop,” where AI tools spit out reams of partly useful, partly distracting material that ends up leaving people to pick out the signal from the noise, may be much worse than you think. It also suggests that much of this material really is being generated by the average worker noodling around on generative AI apps. So maybe it’s time to have a talk with your workforce about the distracting power of both social media and AI.