Internet abuse

As the world and the technology developing these days, more and more people use computers as the main communication tools when keeping contact with other people. There is also a large of amount questions come along. Internet addiction is similar to some other addictions, such as tobacco addiction, drug addiction, Internet game addiction, on line chatting addiction and others. People could not make themselves get rid of using computers. They spend endless hours on searching the Internet, playing games, blogging or watching TV series. Computer Economic notes that some people even use Internet for shopping on line, share transaction, car buying, house renting, and even searching pornographic websites, which have taken a large amount of time during their working hours (Collin, 2000). It has been a part of their lives. Such phenomenon has attracted the employers’ attention.

It is much more frequently happened in our life than before for employee Internet abuse during working time in workplace. At present, the following situation often occur in the work time like browsing non-work related websites and independent operation in the form of news, reading novels, watching pictures, watch videos and listen to audio; downloading content with the work of independent data from the Internet, online shopping, stock trading, advertising and other personal benefits, or make online chat, BBS forums, writing blog, send private messages in many companies. These are also serious phenomenon for daily employee Internet abuse in workplace. Which really happened more frequently in our life and result in many significant consequences. As International Data Corporation survey shows that the data comes to 40% of the Internet access, people always make browsing, which have no relationship with their work , and on line shopping take 60 percentages during employees’ working time (Snapshot Spy, 2008).

Employee Internet abuse may lead to billions of revenue lost for employers(Stewart，2000). The studies pointed out that the negative aspects for publicity and legal responsibilities and many other results due to the employee Internet abuse (Kimberly, 2004). Great inference in conducting research on this issue is very significant. The employers can get benefit from avoiding of employee Internet abuse, also the government. It has proven to be a double-edged word for the management.

The Internet is playing an indispensable and incomparable role in a large amount of people’s lives. Come into the age of information，more and more people began to rely on the network. Problems happened by the Internet abuse make the managers feel terrible headache. How to let employees make most use of the working time and the orderly network and do not abuse in the Internet are quite potentially serious issues.

Research by Blau et al. (2006) found that employee Internet abuse could be divided into three types (Internet related browsing, E-mail without relationship to work, and Internet searching without any purpose).

Why should we take so much time and concentration on caring about Internet usage，especially for employee Internet abuse? The significant evidences and reasons to explain the issue during their working time cannot be ignored. Aware of the employers treat them inequitable, the employees normally rationalize their misuse of the Internet during their working time (Lim, 2002). What’s more, increased accessibility also leads to an increased rise of employee Internet abuse. For most employees, it is available for them to access the Internet free. However, time is not flexible, which is the only limitation for them. It is really convenient for the employees use the Internet during their working time. It can provide a good atmosphere and potent escape from the pressure of life and the stresses under heavy workload.

Finally, it is worth taking note of research into employee Internet abuse，which has shown that younger men are probably to use Internet during their working hours than most of women. Especially it is widely used among people who are lack of self-control. Employee Internet abuse will also lead to the following negative effects: it may cause the loss of confidential data. The potential legal liabilities and negative publicity may take problems to the companies. What’s more, the effective management risk will also be an inevitable issue. Furthermore，the loss of productivity will also lead to the lost of company reputation for quality and service, which will lead to a low efficiency of working. So there are plenty of measures should be taken to improve regarding these issues.

Base on the above problems, the effective solutions to solve employee Internet abuse is the major issue of principle. The employee and the company management should find out the way to reduce employee Internet abuse. Self-awareness should be the key. Sometimes the employees themselves have no awareness of common measures they could take to solve the problems such as employee Internet abuse (Mirchandani and Motwani, 2003). Enforce rules of Internet usage policies in working hours and outline guidance instruction for Internet usage. Especially set out some of prohibited uses, behavior rules, and access privileges.

Using timesheet to collect data is also a frequently methods to record details working content during employees’ working time. Consummate the timetable for employee. Let them fulfill every period time what they have done minute-by-minute. That will very easy to collect how many hours the employee spend on working or anything else during their working time. The employer could also take preventive measures to lock on the computer room access and password access controls. It can be much useful for employees to stop use Internet to do other things. The company should also take other remedial measures to enforce this situation happened. Internal actions like warnings, termination of the employment.

Consequently, avoiding such kinds of employee Internet abuse from the employers view and make big progress in this field are both essential issue for the company’s development.

Although there are some gray areas in the laws regarding employer responsibility for employee Internet abuse, companies can be responsible. The company could always fall back on the employee activities after they use the company resources and property via the company Internet. Therefore, it is an effectively for employers to formulate a series of clear policies on company Internet usage. It may also be right to monitor employee use of company resources to avoid ongoing illegal behavior online. Companies should be aware of the legal protect ways that are available to protect their own rights. There should not have any different policies or rules in the company, especially to employee who addict themselves to the Internet with a different performance standard. Ensuring employee Internet activities are in line with local laws and are available to the latest regulations. The legitimacy of the employee Internet abuse is growing promptly，which is most alarming issue for the corporations.

“Most alarming for corporations is the growing legitimacy of Internet addiction as a disorder, placing corporations who use the Internet at risk for significant liability under the Americans with Disabilities act (Young, 2003).Even there are many ways to control of employee Internet abuse; ensuring employee Internet activities conform to local laws, which seems also very important thing to control the situation.

Conclusion:
In Conclusion, employee Internet abuse contributes to disordered working environment and lawsuits. The best way to overcome employee Internet abuse, one solution maybe the employee and the company management both need effective measures to make an improvement in work. Additionally, establish a useful Internet usage guideline in the workplace. If it is necessary, legal actions have risen out of employee conduct on social networking sites，which is also a very good approach to solve the problem in a legally way. In the future, it will be well solved for occurred after employee Internet abuse.

Reference
Collins, L.A. (2000), Monitoring employees’ Internet activity: Invasion of privacy or simply good business practice? Retrieves September 15,2004, from http://www.itsecurity.com/papers/esniff.htm

Young, K.S. (2004) ‘Internet Addiction A new Clinical Phenomenon and Its Consequence.’ American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 48 No.4, pp. 402-415. Downloaded from http://abs. sagepub.com

Young, K.S. (2003). Employee Internet management: Current business practices and outcomes. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Sanshot Spy (2008), Employee Computer & Internet Abuse Statistics, available at: www. Snashotspy.com/employee-computer-abuse-statistics.htm (accessed January 8,2010)

Lim, V.K.G. (2002), “The IT way of loafing on the job: cyber loafing, neutralizing and organizational justice”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol.23, pp.675-94

Blau, et al. (2006), “Testing a measure of cyberloafing”, Journal of Allied Health, Vol.35 No.1, pp.9-17.

Mirchandani, D. and Motwani, J. (2003), “Reducing internet abuse in the workpalce”, SAM Advanced Management Journal, Vol. 68, pp.22-7

Stewart F. (2000). Internet acceptable use policies: Navigating the management, legal, and technical issues. Information Systems Security, 9(3), 46-53.