What Will Google Announce Next Week?
Facebook Forced To Let You Vote On Privacy Changes
City Workers Banned From Facebook -- After Spending 572 Hours On It
It's no secret that Facebook is productivity's biggest enemy. With all those gifts to send, games to play, and friends to stalk, there's no time for work once you log in to the social networking site. While many offices and schools have caught onto this, it took one British city council a little longer than most.
According to The Daily Mail, the Portsmouth City Council recently banned the staff of 4,500 at its town hall from using Facebook, after discovering that employees spent an average of 413 hours per month perusing the site. Not only were these Brits spending a jaw-dropping amount of time logged-in, but they were also logging in often -- about 270,000 times a month. Things really spiraled out of control this past July, when the staff totaled 572 hours and 38 minutes, or 71 working days, on Facebook, even though they were only supposed to visit the site during lunch or after work. That's taxpayers' money hard at work, folks.
While the site has been blocked, the staff can apply to access Facebook only if it's necessary to complete their job (although it'd be hard to imagine too many instances where this would apply). This ban is a commendable effort by the local government, but the council shouldn't forget that there are plenty of other ways to waste time on the Internet -- Youtube, Hulu, eBay, Switched... [From: The Daily Mail]
Death of Print
Elle Girl
In April 2006, Elle Girl's print edition was closed down, but the Web site lives on at ellegirl.com.
CosmoGirl
Though it will be folded into Seventeen magazine, the teen version of Cosmopolitan will publish its last print issue in December 2008. It will live on at CosmoGirl.com.
Christian Science Monitor
Founded in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, this venerable paper will move all its daily content to the Web starting in 2009, though it will still publish a weekly print version.
Radar Magazine
Was it too snarky for its own good? We'll never know, but this modern-day successor to '80s-era Spy magazine shut down in October. AMI, owner of the National Enquirer, bought RadarOnline.com, however, which will focus on celebrity gossip a la TMZ.com.
US News and World Report
Once a serious competitor to Time and Newsweek, US News and World Report is now best known for its College guides, which it will continue to publish. The weekly newsmagazine, however, will be turned into a monthly, and all daily operations are moving to the Web at usnews.com.
40 Years Later 'Napalm Girl' Tells Her Story
Disney World Scammers Scored Four Years of Free Vacations
Lost Dr. Seuss Cartoons Show Another Side Of The Author
Stranger's Kiss Keeps 16-Year-Old From Committing Suicide
Rookie Cop Reportedly Berated, Called 'A Rat' For Arresting Off-Duty Officer
Chain Food Showdown: The Best & Worst Buffalo Wings
Walmart Ending Membership in Conservative Group
How I Went Bankrupt at 23
PHOTOS: Charlize Theron's Short And Shoulder-Baring Style
Can a New Guy Save Best Buy?
Woman Claims Kangaroo Stalked Her for 2 Days, Then Attacked
Disturbing Video Allegedly Shows Montreal Torso Suspect Murdering Victim
Pete Cosey Dead: Chicago Guitar Great and Miles Davis Collaborator Dies at 68
Facebook, Week Two: Fortunes Made and Fortunes Lost (Mostly Lost)
Heidi Klum's Sexiest (And Scariest) Outfits
A Journey To The Hottest Place On Earth: Dallol Ethiopia
Student Ate Roommate's Brain And Heart, Cops Say
Kansas Police Search For 12-Year-Old Girl Who Disappeared With Canadian She Met Online
Zhang Ziyi Slams Prostitution Allegations
George Zimmerman's Bond Revoked
Witherspoon Bigamy Case Heats Up
Is Kate Walsh Leaving 'Private Practice' Next Season?
New Discovery Sheds Light On Amelia Earhart Mystery
LOOK: Photos Of Military Moms Breastfeeding In Uniform Cause Controversy
Space Agency Predicts Date Of World-Ending Galactic Smash-Up
Calif. Man Becomes Internet Sensation In China For Random Act Of Kindness
See Kim Without Her Wig On 'Don't Be Tardy For The Wedding'
Maine Police Believe Ayla Reynolds Is Dead
Porn Actor Mailed Murder Victim's Body Parts To Canada's Top Political Parties: Cops
PHOTOS: This Month's Biggest Photoshop Fails
New Video Shows Face-Eating Attack Lasted 18 Minutes
Divers To Plunge To The Depths Of Baltic Sea To Examine Mystery Object
Comments
34
Subscribe to commentsKrystalSep 7th 2009 11:21PM
A high-school dropout quickly scanning this article and not busting out a calculator could figure out this averaged less than ten minutes a person per month. People still get a 15 minute break or two every day, right?
Yeah, that's probably concentrated on a few employees who use it for an hour or more...but you think taking facebook away will magically make those incompetent employees productive again? It's not heroin, they are just trying to find something to waste their time on. Discipline/fire the ones that aren't working FOR WHATEVER REASON and act like a freaking manager, sheesh!
That being said, it's not a "right" to be able to get on facebook or even the internet at work. Your boss could ban wikipedia, google, or even inter-office e-mail for all I freaking care. My point is acting like this is some huge problem that is now fixed is ridiculous.
ksclara200Sep 7th 2009 11:28PM
Actually if you do the math it's only about 8 minutes a month per employee which granted is still on company time but not as sensational as 572 hours. Isn't it odd how the media skews things.
saasawyerSep 7th 2009 11:32PM
Easy at my work - all social web sites (FB, My Space), all sports, YouTube, games and personal e-mail are blocked by our corporate server - no temptation...
b-evansSep 8th 2009 12:28AM
Some people seem to believe that use of the Internet for personal business is an entitlement for employees. Well, those thieves doing so were robbing the taxpayer of 71 working days in July. That amounts to 3.22 taxpayer-paid positions. With the average city employee in America earning $45,489 a year, that means that the taxpayers are coughing up $146,474.58 a year in tax money to support these goldbricks on the public payroll.
And some government employees wonder why the taxpayers are in revolt!
SarahvSep 7th 2009 11:57PM
This is a sad commentary on the author's inability to critically analyze statistics.
There might be a story here, but, as most have pointed out, the 7 minutes per employee, per month, does not show a violation of the municipal policy. Either this journalist failed to critically review the data, and reported the gross numbers for a few individuals' usage to represent the group, instead of developing a meaningful interpretation of that information, or, this city overreacted.
In either case, the author could have written a compelling article. Rather, Mr. Johnson was too ignorant or too lazy to dig beyond the inflammatory "572 hours." Forty-five hundred employees probably use 4500 hours per month in the restroom outside of scheduled breaks. If the 572 hours were spread among less than 20 employees, then I will get excited. Or, if the total "personal" use of the internet exceeds one hour per day per employee with internet access, then I will get excited. Until Mr. Johnson produces a noteworthy statistic, I will remain unimpressed with this article and his journalistic gravitas.
lowbugSep 7th 2009 11:57PM
Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, all are juvenile. I tried them for a few months and quickly tired of them. It was silly and a waste of my time. I can't get anyone to use the phone anymore. They would rather text me. Granted they are in their 20's-30's and I am 53, so I admit there is a generation gap there, but none of them seem to be able to start a sentence without "Uuuhhhh.. " because of texting. This internet/cell phone and combined has really lobotomized many people!!
rockitscientitsSep 8th 2009 12:45AM
I'd be more worried that there are 4,500 employees of city hall for a town of 197,000 and an area of 15.5 square miles than about a few hours on facebook!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No, I don't do facebook myself. Looks stooooooopid from what I've seen of it.
bistnderSep 8th 2009 1:00AM
If there really are some folks who used it for too long or too often, they should be disciplined and managed, or terminated. If the city takes a one size fits all approach through a ban on the sites, it likely means their employment agreements make it difficult to discipline people, or they're just too lazy to focus on the problem staff. Really says more about management than the staff.
KirstieSep 8th 2009 2:21AM
Facebook....Another way for the self obsessed sheeple to feel important!
And Twitter is even worse....
Mindless morons with nothing better to do with THEIR time but stalking (oops) I mean "following" someone with nothing better to do with THEIR time but tell everyone how many craps they took today!
PATHETIC!
JillianSep 8th 2009 1:49AM
Facebook....Another way for the self obsessed sheeple to feel important!
And Twitter is even worse....
Mindless morons with nothing better to do with THEIR time but stalking (oops) I mean "following" someone with nothing better to do with THEIR time but tell everyone how many craps they took today!
PATHETIC!
valleylookSep 8th 2009 2:06AM
Another "Do the math bozo" to see someone at that City Hall made themself a hero for NOTHING. Where I work we have Solitare on all computers ... they prefer having employees awake and ready for any work if it ever happens, e-bay and craigslist get more use than telephones, bathrooms, photocopiers, fax machines, and vending machines combined ... My employer prefers that employees spend their time on Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc. verses porn sites (although they only clamp down on that if you are in a porn room for more than 2 hours a day. If you try to call anyone where I work, the employee might put their personal call on hold ... maybe ... All I can say is we insure that your tax money is in our fat paychecks every week ... More Obama Stimulis money hardly working ... Thanks Nancy Pelosi and Obama!!!!
denisemsleethSep 8th 2009 2:09AM
anyone want to be my farmville neighbor?? LOL
JohnSep 8th 2009 1:05PM
I work in healthcare and they have our Internet access ratcheted down pretty tight to make sure people aren't spending work time surfing the Internet doing non-work stuff. I have a close friend who works for the state and it amazes me all the things state employees can access on the Internet from work. Barely anything is blocked and from what she has told me, many of her co-workers spend a large portion of every day (sometimes all day) playing online rather than working.
PJD120Sep 17th 2009 9:23PM
tlmdecember31 said 8:47PM on 9-07-2009
These people all should be doing what they get paid to do, not be on Facebook. And seriously, once you have "reconnected", shouldn't you then have the old fashioned kind of relationship? The people in this world are truly starting to worry me.
I totally agree with you Tlmedecember31. The people in the world are starting to worry me too. My sons don't even talk to people on the phone, they just text to no ends, or are either on Facebook or Myspace talking to people. What happened to just calling someone on the phone? I see people all the time texting, or always doing something on their phone. In the near future, we won't be talking to anyone, just texting and being on Facebook and Myspace. Sad but true.