Cyberloafing and social desirability bias among students and employees

Abstract

This study addressed the prevalence of cyberloafing and social desirability bias among 1339 students and 996 jobholders. An online survey was administered which included a five-factor cyberloafing scale and a two-factor social desirability scale. Each measure revealed acceptable fit values in confirmatory factor analyses. Findings showed that different types of cyberloafing had different prevalence rates. Students surpassed employees and males surpassed females with regard to overall cyberloafing scores. However, different types of cyberloafing revealed different patterns in individual comparisons. Employees surpassed students in terms of the impression management component of social desirability. Cyberloafing and social desirability were positively related, which implied the need for including social desirability as a covariate in further research.