• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, March 29, 2017

Comrades, I’m pleased to report that the glorious workers’ struggle has ended in victory! The bosses have conceded the right to goof off on social media at work, because everyone already does anyway and there’s nothing they can really do about it.

At least that’s the conclusion I draw from new survey results from ComPsych, which provides employee assistance programs for companies covering health and work-life balance, among other areas.

ComPsych asked 1,200 respondents from a number of companies about their social media habits at work, and found that 88% said they check social media at least once a day (presumably the remaining 12% were lying).

Within this group, the majority (60%) said they check social media one to five times per day while at work, 10% said they check it six to ten times per day, and 18% admitted to checking it more than ten times per day.

It’s not surprising that employees consider the ability to check social media at least occasionally a basic quality of life issue for their workplace, and most (reasonable) bosses have made concessions to that end, but the fact remains that excessive social media use can have negative impacts on productivity, which may spill over to other areas of their lives, according to ComPsych.

On that note, the company offers a workshop on controlling social media use by prioritizing different kinds of usage, understanding what prompts you to turn to social media, and exercising “digital mindfulness.”

ComPsych also points out simple techniques like turning off push notifications or removing apps from your work phone.

The ComPsych survey results are roughly in line with previous studies of social media usage in the workplace.

Last September a survey of 1,000 workers by Bambu, a service from Sprout Social, found that 67% admitted to using social media at work.

Asked how much time they spent on social media at work, 18.7% of employees said they spent 15 minutes or less per day; 17.2% spent 15 minutes to half an hour; 12.3% said 30 to 60 minutes; 9.6% said 60 minutes to 120 minutes; and 9.4% said over two hours.

Four out five respondents admitted that social media distractions have a negative impact on their work.