Digital Drift: Unraveling Impact of Cyberloafing on Job Performance among Service Workers in the Klang Valley

Abstract

5.18 billion individuals used the internet as of April 2023, of which 4.8 billion were active on social media. With 33.03 million internet users in Malaysia, the COVID-19-related surge in remote work has increased internet and social media use, contributing to problems including cyberloafing—the practice of exploiting work hours for non-work-related online activity. This study examines how 250 service workers in Malaysia's Klang Valley perform at work in relation to cyberloafing. Convenience sampling was used in a quantitative research design, with a survey distributed via Google Forms and collected in person. Using validated tools, the survey assessed job performance and cyberloafing practices. A Cronbach's alpha of 0.877 indicated reliability. The majority of respondents, or 65.6%, engaged in low to moderate levels of cyberloafing, according to the results. With 63.6% of respondents rating their performance as "high" or "very high," job performance was typically high. Cyberloafing and job performance were found to have a weak but positive association (r = 0.137, p = 0.030) according to Pearson correlation analysis. This suggests that, although cyberloafing does occur, it does not significantly lower job performance and may even correlate with slight gains in performance. The study advances our knowledge of the complex relationships between cyberloafing and job performance by indicating that modest amounts of cyberloafing may not be wholly harmful and may even have a small beneficial effect. These insights can be used by organizations to create well-balanced rules that control cyberloafing without unduly restricting workers, preserving output and worker satisfaction. As conclusion, even though cyberloafing is common, its effects on work performance are complicated and not always detrimental, thus more research into its possible advantages in specific situations is necessary.