Other than wasting time, how does social media affect your job? Read “Dark Media: Understanding the Darker Side of Work, Personality and Social Media” by Ian MacRae (Bloomsbury Business) and come away with insights.
In the past couple of years or so, the way we relate to others has become radically different from what it once was. Mostly, we’ve had to move our connections “online wherever possible.” We already had the tools. Wasn’t it better to go online than to have no connection at all?
Maybe.
As MacRae points out, going online was also loaded with problems, especially when social media was added to the mix. We learned, sometimes to our dismay, that people are “not fundamentally different in online spaces than… in physical spaces.” Online behavior reflects real behavior, and we can become more influenced by a “filter bubble.”
You can imagine how important it is, then, to heed personalities when hiring. Personality and personality disorders “crystallize… in a person’s mid-20s” and “the indications are that personality does not change under normal circumstances.” Even if you can categorize someone’s personality, you’ll need to remember that in the workplace, there are both strengths and weaknesses to that core.
And here’s where casual online consumption comes in: Social media is “designed to influence behavior (CQ),” says MacRae, but our understanding of its effects on the workplace is not yet clear. People are already used to social media and they sometimes need to be taught how to act within a new environment.
If you’re “actively trying to improve these environments” at your workplace, knowing that “People can improve” gives your business the impetus to model good behavior online, while guiding remote workers toward a certain company culture and monitoring and observing for any other issues that may occur.
Remember, says MacRae, “work can be better for people and bring out the best from people.”
Chances are, you’ve spent some time in the past five years ranting about social media, for better or for worse. “Dark Social” not only underscores your thoughts, it explains them, too. But it may be a fine line you walk. How can you ask your employees to Tweet or post about your business, while also keeping social media out of the workplace?
MacRae helps sort out all aspects of this conundrum with a dive into psychology, communication and, using the 45th president of the United States as case study, research on personality types. Yes, this last may rankle some readers, but the takeaway is interesting, as well as relevant.
Alas, implementation can be as complicated as the rationale. It doesn’t help that this book sometimes seems to veer too far off-topic before returning to the main subject. Even so, readers who are concerned about the influence of social media in or out of the office will find scientific reasoning and guidance here, making “Dark Social” hard not to “Like.
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