Using social media for personal reasons in the workplace might have a few positive effects, new research indicates.

A study by the University of Bergen, published in Comprehensive Psychology, noted that about 80 per cent of employees check their profiles on sites such as Facebook and Twitter at work.

According to the research, the notion that using social media at work actually aids creativity and inspires some workers cannot be ruled out.

The team behind the study also said it is possible that accessing social networking sites in the office can aid performance, especially if colleagues are using them to interact with each other.

However, researchers noted that using Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms at work can potentially harm the wellbeing of organisations, with this type of distraction having a negative effect on self-reported work performance.

Nevertheless, Cecilie Schou Andreassen of the University of Bergen's Department of Psychosocial Science said "the effects may be regarded as slight enough to be irrelevant, with no practical importance".

Chartered Psychologist Dr Mark Parkinson comments:

"There are many techniques for stimulating creativity and quite a few rely on interrupting a person's 'normal' thought patterns. So perhaps it's no surprise that deliberately breaking away from work and checking the web, or your phone, might jog the brain into something new: possibly sparked by all those extra Facebook 'likes', quips on Twitter, or pictures on Snapchat.

"That's the good news. The bad news is that the Bergen study seems to be based on users of Norwegian online newspapers, so participants who already (I suspect) continually interrupt their day; and of course there's no sign of a control group.

"The effects on work performance were also 'self-report'. I expect if I surfed the Net at work I would claim either: (a) it had no effect on my output, or (b), in some way it made me more productive, more creative etc.

"Finally it's worth remembering that other research suggests that disruptions, especially of the electronic variety, seem to reduce capability: 20 per cent lower on cognitive tests; and actually make people more distractible. For example, studies with students show they can't concentrate on work for more than a couple of minutes without checking their smart phones.

"Where does this leave us? It seems that there's more stuff to distract us, and that we want to be distracted. So in all probability we do need to be more 'creative' to make up for the time we lose checking Twitter!"

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