New Digital Technology Can, in Some Circumstances, Make Businesses Less Productive (bloomberg.com)

In a poll of 20,000 European workers released Monday, Microsoft, which became one of the world's most profitable companies by marketing office productivity software, acknowledges new digital technology can, in some circumstances, make businesses less productive. From a report: Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft joins a growing number of prominent Silicon Valley companies and entrepreneurs that are starting to question the social benefits of the technology they once championed. Facebook warned in December that its social network might, in some cases, cause psychological harm. Microsoft identifies a number of possible reasons for this negative impact, including: workers who are too distracted by a constant influx of e-mails, Slack messages, Trello notifications, texts, Tweets -- not to mention viral cat videos -- to concentrate for sustained periods; workers who aren't properly trained to use the new technology effectively; tech that isn't adequately supported by the business, forcing workers to lose time because "the computers are down;" and workers who suffer burnout because, with mobile devices and at-home-working, they feel tethered to the job around-the-clock.

Comments

That was true YEARS ago

[davecb]

Back when Honeywell made computers as well as thermostats, a study was made of managers who stareted using a new, on-line financial planning application, a kind a strange mainframe-based spreadsheet-thingie. The ones who reported using it heavily had far worse contributions to profitability than everyone else. We figure they were heads-down in the computer when they should havce been doing management (;-))