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New research from corporate analytics firm Protiviti and market research agency ICM suggests that businesses are finding social media disruptive within their corporate cultures. The findings may reflect the graphics industry as well as the business world overall.

Despite increased use of these platforms within advertising, digital signage and for interpersonal communication, the report indicates that one in six UK employees considers social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn a major risk to corporate security, while three in ten believe they pose a real risk to personal security.

"Public and private use of social networking sites has blurred," says managing director, Protiviti UK, Jonathan Wyatt. "On one hand, employees are using social networking tools for managing activities in their private life – but accessing these tools from corporate systems. On the other hand, employees are being asked to carry out specific tasks relating to work via the same social networks."

The findings also highlight a growing generational divide. Twenty-one percent of workers aged 55 to 65 say they engage with social networking sites on a daily basis whereas nearly three-quarters of workers aged 18 to 24 claim to use social technologies every day.