Impact of social media addiction on employees' wellbeing and work productivity

Abstract

The objective of this study is to gain insights into the experiences of employees regarding their social media usage and consequences of social media overuse at the workplace. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted, audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) procedures. The qualitative data was collected from the employees working in renowned IT/ITES companies in India. The themes that emerged are lack of sleep; backache and eye strain; feeling of envy; lack of depth in the relationships; tendency to seek approvals; not meeting deadlines; compromise with the work quality; distraction from work. The present study intends to assist human resource managers in designing appropriate policies and guidelines pertaining to employees' social media usage at the workplace.