A new study released today by AT&T proves that social networking at the workplace actually happens to increase efficiency of employees instead of distracting them as we usually think about it - depending on the tools used and the purposes. The study has been carried out for AT&T by Dynamic Markets in five European countries (Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands) and involved interrogation of more than 2,500 people.

65% of people said that the companies they work for use social networking as part of their working process. But it is important to note that companies adopting social networking tools are very choosy when it comes to what exactly they want their employees to use. In fact, the top three positions among the tools used in the companies are held by tools developed and controlled by the company itself: companies’ own collaboration sites on intranets (mentioned by 39% of respondents), internal forums within the company (20%), and company-produced video material shared on intranets (16%). LinkedIn, Facebook and other online third-par