Trend Micro's latest global survey finds that nearly a quarter of employees visit social networking sites while on their companies' corporate networks. Nevertheless, checking personal e-mail is the most popular non-business activity done at the office.
The “2010 Corporate End User Study” got its data from 1,600 respondents – 401 from the U.S., 399 from the U.K., 401 from Germany and 401 from Japan. Respondents had to be full-time employees with access to e-mail and the Internet at work, who used computers more than five hours per week at work.
Overall, 24 percent of the world's employees accessed a social networking site (such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace) while on a company's LAN, up from 19 percent in 2008.
In the U.S., this figure was 24 percent (up from 20 percent in 2008), while in the U.K. the figure was 33 percent (up from 27 percent in 2008). In Germany, 24 percent of employees accessed social networking sites while on a corporate network (up from 13 percent), while in Japan the number was 14 percent (down from 17 percent).
Checking personal e-mail was still the most popular activity done while on a company's network in the U.S. (66 percent), U.K. (68 percent) and Germany (66 percent). In Japan (49 percent), checking personal e-mail was second only to browsing websites for personal interests, which received a 53 percent response.
In the U.S., personal online banking or bill paying was the third-most popular activity while on a corporate network (39 percent), followed by making a non-business-related online purchase (31 percent), watching/listening to streaming audio or video (29 percent), visiting a social networking site, downloading executable files (22 percent), instant messaging (18 percent), downloading music or movies (8 percent), making VoIP calls (4 percent) and participating in online gambling or gaming (3 percent).
This order was nearly identical in all four countries in the study.
The size of the company was seen to have an effect on how frequently employees accessed social networking sites, according to Trend Micro. Overall, 25 percent of those in small businesses accessed these sites via their company's LAN, compared to 22 percent of those who worked in large companies. In the U.S., this split was 27/21. The U.K. (31/34) and Germany (22/26) exhibited the opposite trend, while Japan (21/7) followed suit, though more extremely.
The type of computer used also had a strong bearing on this activity. Overall, 18 percent of employees on desktops accessed social networking sites while on a company LAN, compared to 29 percent of those on laptops (up from 21 percent in 2008). This trend was consistent across all four countries. In the U.S., the split was 16/32; in the U.K. It was 28/38; in Germany, it was 18/31; and in Japan it was 12/16.
Interestingly enough, laptop users were also more likely to share confidential information via IM, e-mail and social media, according to Trend Micro.
Source:
http://trendmicro.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&year=0&type=current&news_item=822
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