Phil Black, London: A London Public relations company is a Facebook-friendly workplace. At some point during the day, almost everyone here gets involved in online social networking. Some like Abbie Cohen do it more than others.

But she is just one office worker caught up in a worldwide phenomenon. Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and BEBO provide another way of staying in touch with people and escaping office existence.

For bosses, it is new technology but an old debate. Are personal distractions on the job acceptable? "The technology and people's use of the technology has outpaced bosses understanding of the technology itself,” is an opinion.

Niall McKinney conducted a survey for the marketing industry that he says proves Facebook-ing at work is not a big deal. "People on average spent less than ten minutes a day on facebook and not only that, only around 17 per cent of people use facebook while they are at work.

So while people are using social networking sites in the workplace, they are not on average using it excessively,” said Niall Mc Kinney from Utalk Marketing. But an increasing number of bosses disagree and have banned social networking sites in their offices.

The bans have inspired the creation of Facebook protest groups demanding more confidence. But other groups aren't helping the cause. These pages are dedicated to self-confessed office slackers who boast about spending much of their work day on Facebook.

That's the extreme end. But for many it has become a daily temptation. There is definitely a tendency to go on it too much and it can be distracting but as long as one manages it effectively, it can be quite useful.

But employer groups say sites like this reduce productivity because unlike personal emails and phone calls, they are not limited to straight communication.

You can spend hours browsing your friend's sites or making your own more impressive. Facebook alone has more than 37 million users.

Bosses who want online networking out of their workplace are facing off against a global army of workers that grows bigger everyday.