It is not merely IT companies but professional law firms that are imposing restrictions on these sites. Says Piyush Sinha who runs a law firm for corporate lawyers in Delhi: “I have blocked these sites completely and have informed employees about the consequences if the company finds them accessing the same through proxy sites.”

An important reason for young people moving on to social networking sites seems to be job leads. Simran Singh, a senior manager in a Delhi based HR and headhunting firm says, “We have blocked these networking sites because we saw employees using it more for job hunting and sourcing data for personal use.”

While all corporate, IT software companies and services centric companies like GenPact, American Express, HCL and I-Gate where productivity is measured in hours worked have already blocked these sites through corporate firewall, sectors like banking and media are still in a fix whether to block them or not considering their play@work HR policies. For young people like Akhil and Rashi, it looks like the ‘fun’ is over and it’s time to work.

Social networking, what’s that?

A social networking website is a virtual space a user can create a profile and build a personal network that connects him or her to other users. In the past two years, such sites have rocketed from a niche activity into a phenomenon that engages almost everybody today.

Orkut: Run by Google, it is designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. It permits users to access another user’s friends and chat with the ones they like. It also permits users to create various communities and invite other members.

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