How to Block Facebook
Posted Under: conscious living, success, workplace success
Obviously, using Facebook at work is a real productivity killer. Workplaces loose hundreds of man/woman hours per year to Facebook and other social networking applications like Twitter.
There’s no denying it, Facebook is addictive, our voyeuristic nature keeps our curiosity piqued, especially the young, social, computer savy twenty something crowd; all of their friends and acquaintances are on it, and the urge to reply immediately when someone writes on your wall is almost like catnip to Felix; irresistible. Facebook is useful. People use it to plan all their social events, from weekend parties to recreational sports schedules.
But using Facebook at work is even less productive than standing around the water cooler chatting; at least when you’re talking to your colleagues you’re building relationships with your fellow employees and maybe even talking about work related issues.
When we work for someone, we have entered into an agreement to trade our time producing something in exchange for money. It seems that today’s ‘wired’ generation has an overblown and truly bizarre sense of self entitlement. Do they really think they should be paid for simply showing up? You get paid for eight hours of work, you should give eight hours of work. Or maybe if you waste thirty minutes of time on Facebook you should stay thirty minutes late. I can’t see that going over so well.
A company needs to set a firm policy on what it expects regarding Internet usage. Many employers are reluctant to ban certain sites like Facebook outright for fear of employee backlash, so they simply tolerate the lost productivity. A Facebook addict is like a dog with a bone. You take the bone away and you’re probably gonna get a bite! Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but when you least expect it that dog will be so enraged they’ll find a way to get you where it hurts!
If employers would just put together a brief policy, even a memo, stating that internet abuse may be monitored and, if required, certain sites may be blocked; people would at least be aware that the boss is keeping an eye on things. This is probably enough to keep most employees from spending too much time on Facebook.
It is understandable that people want to keep track of the issues in their lives, and Facebook is an excellent tool for the job. To take Facebook away from employees is like a slap on the knuckles from an overbearing parent. And when kids get slapped they just get angry and their productivity erodes further.
The first computer I used at work had a 100MB hard drive in it; Windows was just showing up and the Internet at work was dedicated to one computer for about 200 employees! Too bad I didn’t buy some stock back then! My first computer was just another tool, like a hammer is to a building contractor. Truth be told, we wasted more time just trying to get the damned things to even function properly than the worst Facebook abuser could ever waste in a day! Today,a work computer has become an unruly monster capable of huge time savings but also of huge time wastage; and sometimes they still don’t work worth a crap!
If you’re interested you can block Facebook, or any other web site, like this:
Open Windows Explorer and locate the following file in the following location.
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
If you don’t see the file, Windows is hiding it. Select TOOLS, then FOLDER OPTIONS, then select the VIEW tab. Under Hidden Files and Folders select the Show Hidden Files and Folders radio button.
Open the ‘host’ file using notepad.
At the bottom of the text file, enter the following line:
0.0.0.0 www.facebook.com
Save the file and Facebook is blocked.
If you’re lucky the Facebook abuser will think that they have been blocked at the server level and may not attempt to Google a fix, which they would find by simply stumbling upon this blog post!
And hey, I’m not on the bosses side really, if you’ve been blocked check your host file, maybe you can delete the 0.0.0.0 www.facebook.com line and get back into Facebook!
This little trick may be useful for parents wanting to block certain websites from their kids as well.
