Is banning social networking sites really a good thing?

There was an interesting news article on BBC Breakfast News and their website today. It opened the debate as to whether or not employers should allow their staff to access social networking sites such as Facebook whilst at work. I understand the topic was raised following Kent County Council banning all 32,000 of its staff from using the social networking site whilst at work.

Kent County Council said that they had introduced the ban in order to reduce the amount of time-wasting by staff, which in turn costs money. I agree that time-wasting is detrimental to productivity, but I can see that introducing a carpet ban will disgruntle the majority of staff who use Facebook and potentially cause a larger loss in productivity across the business because their job satisfaction has dropped.

I think that the key is moderation. Like with eating fatty foods; everything is good in moderation. If there are certain members of staff who are spending hours at a time communicating with people over social networking sites that is not of benefit to the business, then perhaps disciplinary action is needed. Whereas employees checking their Facebook accounts whilst on their lunch-break is not affecting the productivity of the business, and both employee and employer are happy.

For me, banning social networking sites would have a negative impact on my productivity as a web designer/developer. In order for me to keep abreast of current trends and developments within my professional career I need exposure to social networking sites and their audiences. I need to be able to see what is being done in terms of interacting with users, how to address users and look at design elements of successful products.

Without this exposure it would be hard to know the target audience and the conventions of the internet that they may be familiar with. It would be harder to gauge what ‘works’ and what doesn’t work.