Social networking sites cost British economy over 1.38 billion pounds per year!

London, Oct 26(ANI): A recent survey done in the UK has revealed that the cost to the economy due to use of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook by office workers during office hours could be over 1.38 billion pounds per year.

The survey on 1,460 office workers commissioned by Morse, an IT services and technology company, found that more than half of office workers used these social networking sites for personal use during the working day, and admitted to wasting an average of 40 minutes a week each.

Philip Wicks, consultant at Morse, said the cost to the economy could be substantially higher than the 1.38 billion estimates.

"When someone is asked for their own use they say around 40 minutes a week, but when asked about their colleagues they say they say up to an hour a day. We have used the lower of those figures rather than the high point," The Telegraph quoted Wicks, as saying.

"It is the sort of thing people constantly use which means that it's not quite the same as doing a crossword, where you spend half an hour on it and it is finished. When it comes to an office environment the use of these sites is clearly becoming a productivity black hole," he added.

The figures also revealed that one in three people had seen sensitive company information posted on social networking sites, leading to fears about how workers use the Internet.

This revelation has come as a big surprise to Wicks, who said: "Social networking can be a cause for good when it is used professionally, but I think organizations need to wake up - that is not the way it is always being used." (ANI)