But concern about the negative effects of social networking on those grown-ups . . . who tend to prefer Facebook . . . is a new wrinkle.

Facebook, a slightly more mature and professional competitor to Bebo and MySpace, has been unusual in that it is polarising the business community rather than the professional handwringers. According to a global survey of 600 employees by security company Sophos, nearly half of all companies have taken to banning Facebook at work while others are permitting usage only once strict guidelines are met.

There are probably thousands of Irish people using Facebook . . . and many are using it as a new business tool. Those Irish companies that are banning access to Facebook will not be able to connect to former secretary generals of Irish Government departments, the press people of political parties, CEOs of large Irish companies, the bosses of the Irish divisions of billion dollar companies, senior analysts in investment firms, some of the best PR people in the country and, of course, me.

Many businesses cite what a productivity nightmare Facebook can be. The average Facebook user spends 20 minutes on the website per day. Even if a small percentage of the 30 million users who checked Facebook did so during work, it still amounts to millions of euro worth of man hours which might be put to better use.

Yet a recent statistic from BT chief information officer JP Rangaswami showed that some of the top financial companies have a large percentage of their staff using Facebook: some 20% of Goldman Sachs are on it, 10% of Deutche Bank and 10% of Morgan Stanley staff use Facebook. As Rangaswami put it, these institutions are not known for hiring time wasters. So why would these worldleading financial companies and their staff find Facebook an advantage when these firms are known for their strong work ethic?

Dublin business consultant Krishna De advises people on her blog about Facebook and says "enabling your people to connect with others through online social networks could make your business more productive and reduce overheads" . . . and that's the rub for all these companies. Many of these institutions are hyperconnected organisations which have greater number crunching power than many European intelligence agencies combined. They thrive on information and welcome connections to all sources of data. A company with connected employees is a connected company.

New untested technologies can have advantages and disadvantages, so while some companies are betting on Facebook, others are being ultraconservative and are holding off and letting others find the bumps and potholes. The early adopter companies are extending their web and blog usage policies to social networking sites now. For Facebook they are telling employees to make it very clear their opinions are their own and not representative of the company, they are educating them on how to respect company privacy policies and how not to get into libelous situations and some companies are instructing their employees on how to make best business use out of Facebook.

For now Facebook is the new shiny thing and as such there are those pouring scorn on it and those religiously worshipping it and everyone in between but we're in a Web 2.0 world putting forward web 1.0 arguments yet again. The very same arguments by proponents and opponents were used for blogs, the web and email and were probably even used for the motorcar many years before. Any tool can equally be as dangerous as much as it is useful and a sensible company will critically examine whether they can make use of a tool before outright rejecting it.

Most importantly, if you ban Facebook, you won't be able to connect with me!