International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 3, Issue 1, January-2012 1
ISSN 2229-5518
Middle Graded Offices of an Organization and
Internet Use
Dr Irfan Zafar
Effects on Social Behavior, Professional Skills and Official Assignments
Abstract—This research project is a longitudinal field study designed to examine the antecedents and consequences of Office Internet use in middle graded employees of a government organization related to the research and development field of work. Does using the Internet affect Professional’s development? Do employees become efficient in their work? Does professional skills and performance suffer or improve? Does it help them to complete their official assignments? In this research study, a wealth of opinions and anecdotal evidence has attempted to answer these basic questions. At one extreme are the Internet enthusiasts who view Internet use as the panacea for all that plagues society, including inadequacies in the organizational system. At the other extreme are the Internet alarmists who view Internet use as undermining the very fabric of society, including the healthy development of its workmanship. Most people fall somewhere between these extremes. Most are waiting for research to answer these questions. This research is primarily aimed at finding the solution to the issues agitating their minds pragmatically and in the light of detailed research undertaken.
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Does the use of Internet affect the Professional develop- ment, efficiency; skills, output and performance of the em- ployees in an organization are some of the pertinent questions which this research study will attempt to determine.
A group of 50 officers of an organization were selected to par- ticipate in the study of the social, professional and working effects of internet use during office hours. The said people have been provided with the facility of internet at their offices during the office timings.
The major effects under study are (a) how frequently people use the internet during their working hours, (b) social behavior of the people using the interne; with their colleagues and staff, (c) improvement of the professional skills and know- ledge and (d) the effect of the internet use on their work and tasks assigned by the organization/superiors.
The selected participants in the project were all the medium- income middle graded officers (grade 17-19) containing male (80%) and female (20%), married (34%) and unmarried (66%). More than 90% of the selected people having age between 25-
35 years and 10% having 35-45 years
How frequently do People use the Internet during working hours?
Numerous surveys have attempted to measure how frequent- ly people use the Internet at offices. Estimates vary from as high as several hours a day to as low as 1 hour daily, depend- ing on how Internet use is measured (e.g., self-report, auto- matically recorded). It depends also on the following factors e.g., age of person, type of assignments and tasks. Despite high variability in the empirical estimates, general perception is that children spend a great deal of time online. Mostly people use the internet as a research tool while nearly every person uses E-mail daily.
This research observed multiple measures of Internet use to permit a more fine-grained analysis of how people are spend- ing their time online. Analysis was carried out of the internet usage of the selected persons in the following dimensions; Email, Chatting, Research, Office assignments solutions, En- tertainments, E-shopping.
Few studies and inconsistent findings render uncertain whether using the Internet has any influence on people's be- havior with their colleagues and staff. On the one hand, time spent online isolates the people from each other. On the other hand, the Internet facilitates communication with geographi- cally distant workmates and friends, and makes it easier to communicate frequently with those nearby. Two independent reviews of this research have concluded that there are few documented social effects, either positive or negative. We ex- amined two types of social outcomes that may be influenced by Official's Internet use: the behavior and links of the officers with their colleagues and workmates and secondly their man- agement and behavior with staff persons.
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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 3, Issue 1, January-2012 2
ISSN 2229-5518
Internet's social impact may depend on using of tools to build new relationships and/or strengthen existing ones. Social im- pact may also depend on personal and situational factors which have yet to be identified. Alternatively, it may be that Internet use has no social impact. Like media that have pre- ceded it (e.g., books), the Internet may be seamlessly inte- grated into people's ongoing lives.
As was the case for social outcomes, few studies have ex- amined the relationship between person's Internet use and its effect on the official assignments of the related person.
The efficiency of the workers (officer or staff) of an organiza- tion depends in the field of work of the related person, types of its assignments assigned to him, nature and competency of the person to extract the solution from the resources.
A considerable research has examined the effects of computer and internet use on professional skills. However, reviews of this literature typically conclude that the results are inconclu- sive. Although benefits of computer and internet use have been observed, they typically depend on a variety of factors (e.g., subject matter). The only cognitive outcome for which benefits have been consistently observed is technical know- ledge and skills. Internet research papers and other informa- tion web sites contribute to improve the scientific and engi- neering practical skills and methodologies.
The findings indicated that 50% of the selected persons spent
0-20% of their internet time using E-mail and about 50% spent
more than 30% of their net time for the Email use daily. A fewer use up to 80% of the net for the E-mail. 55% of the peoples do not use the chatting during office hours. About half the number of users use more than 50% net for research work, 18% users take help from net for the solution of their official assignments and about 48% do not take any help re- garding their office work from the net.
It was found that there was no social change in the behavior of the 80% of the people under study. 18% showed the positive effect in their behavior and of the staff working under them.
2% were found showing negative effects due to the use of in- ternet.
It was found in the study that 34% people have no effect on their official assignments, 56% people take the help of internet to solve their official assignments and achieve 20-40% positive effects on average. 12% showed some negative effects perhaps due to the wastage of time by the use of other internet activi- ties. All these outcomes were also dependent on the type of the assignments given by the organization to their employees because some topics/areas have practically no help available on the internet, thus rendering it useless for the users.
In the project it is also observed that 64% of the people show the improvement of their technical and professional skills. Most of them improved their skills up to 60%. Most of the people selected were young and unmarried; this fact also af- fects the improvement of the manpower skills.
These results show an enormous advantage of the internet facility to the workforce power of an organization. The results very clearly show that the use of Internet will definitely in- crease the overall organizational efficiency; ultimately enhance the technical growth of the departments and boost up the speed of projects within the organization.
Overall, findings from the project indicate that office Internet use has no adverse effects on people's social or official out- comes and has positive effects on their professional and tech- nical outcomes. More research is needed to examine the gene- ralization of these findings to identify mediating mechanisms by which Internet use influences professional skills outcomes, and to develop and evaluate interventions designed to maxim- ize the benefits of Internet use for officials.
Although internet has some bad effects of its misuse but it can be controlled and restricted by developing a check and moni- toring system and by limiting the access to all internet sites. Internet facility is very beneficial for the employees of an or- ganization if it is provided according to their project needs and the nature of works being undertaken. It improves the knowledge and broadens the vision of the manpower of the organization resulting in its growth.
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