Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Abuse of Internet access at work - are you involved?

thesis paper
I got an A for presenting the proposal last semester for my research project.

In a recent newsworthy by The Star in February 2013, from the conducted survey shows that Malaysians are spending 2 hours on social networking or Internet during the 9 to 5 office hours. Internet is indispensable in the current working environment; in fact it has become a standard office facility. On the down side, there is a rising concern of the abuse and misuse.

Too dry? Yeah maybe to some people. But this is a real problem for employers, abuse of internet and computers in the workplace has become rampant. We have to understand the impact of internet abuse can be anything from (1)productivity loss, (2)security incidents, (3)network congestion to (4)legal liability.

A closer look of example Internet abuse at workplace from our local scene whereby a father who got to know about the 5 months old baby died at Taska from the facebook! Read it here. Who could have updated the facebook if not the employee/staff? Isn't she or he abuses the internet access? Doing personal stuff while at work using the Internet. Though the employer might not providing the smartphone nor the data plan/Internet connection, but the act of getting connected while during office hour? That is obviously not work related.

What really is abusing the Internet access at workplace? In my research, I'm referring to Internet abuse as:
- employees' use of Internet for non-work related purposes (Woon & Pee, 2004)
- all points of connecting to the Internet within the workplace including from smartphones (Bernard,2011)
- use of Internet and mobile technology during working hours for personal reasons (Vitak et al,2011)

I have set three objectives to be achieved for this research, (1) to investigate the employees' internet abuse activities during office hours, (2) to identify key factors that contribute to internet abuse and (3) to recommend countermeasure to overcome internet abuse during office hours.

Still dry? I don't know about you, but I'm very much into this topic though it wasn't my intention to go for Computer Ethics. Thanks to my supervisor who opened my eyes that I could contribute something valuable in this field of study. I will try to do my best. To friends out there, soon enough I will need your kind help to answer the questionnaire pertaining to this study. Don't avoid me ya! :p

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