Teens Expect Social Network Access at Work. Should Real Job

Ah, teenagers. So full of opinions and definite ideas about the world. Fond of expressions that begin "When I'm older…, and that end with such sage pronouncements as "I'll eat potato chips for every meal", or "I'm going to build a time machine and go back and visit Frodo in Middle Earth,"* and "I definitely won't work for a company if I can't use Facebook at work."

So important are social networks to the teens of today that 58 percent of respondents to a recent Junior Achievement/Deloitte poll said they would consider their ability to access them at work when considering a job offer from a potential employer.

While there are obvious problems with relying on the opinions of a group of people whose life experience to date has been confined to the classroom, the finding does indicate the growing pervasiveness of social networking technologies in our society. And if they aren't already a workplace issue, they soon will be: even if half of those who answered positively change their minds on the social networking thing by the time they're confronting the cold hard realities of adult life, that still leaves more than a quarter of the coming generation of workers who will expect to have access to social media at work.

That all points to a future where we're all maintaining ever-increasing social circles, collaborating more than ever before, and working harder than ever to keep up with the pace of technological change. That being the case, perhaps teenagers have something to teach us after all—even if it we don't need to go as far as turning down a position because the company forbids Twitter usage on the job.

--Posted by Phil Stott, Vault.com

*That wasn’t just me, right? Oh.