The Weekly Round-Up: Social job search and a paperless future

Use Facebook to find work and catch e-reader fever with a gold-plated Kindle...

The road to social-networking success is riddled with potholes ready to send the unwary sprawling by the wayside. For example, recently a friend of the Round-Up received an email from one of his relatives which ran along the lines of, "Sorry you broke up with your girlfriend, LOL."

Understandably confused, he enquired as to what he had done to merit such a stinging attack.

"Laugh Out Loud?" responded the confused relative. "I thought it meant Lots Of Love".

Still, they could have used ROFL instead, which would have been a lot harder to wriggle out of.

But it seems that fear of potential social-networking embarrassments like this, coupled with our well-known British reserve, may mean we are missing out on our dream jobs.

Just one in five people in the UK searches for jobs on social networks - that puts us right down near the bottom of the global rankings in 25th place, below Germany, Belgium, Italy and well, pretty much everyone. LOL, indeed.

Kelly Services, which produced the survey, said social media is an increasingly important global employment tool that candidates in the UK should exploit more - but only one per cent of people in the UK have secured a job through social media.

Apparently, one reason for Brits' shyness when it comes to using social networks in this way is the fear that posting the wrong kind of material could have a negative effect on their careers, according to the Kelly Global Workforce Index survey of 97,000 people in 30 countries.

Presumably, posting: "I hate this job. I really need to get away from these losers" is the sort of thing they are talking about here.

But, if you're getting ready to spruce up your social media world, why not start by joining the silicon.com LinkedIn group, as all the best people are there already. Don't forget about Twitter, and we're on Facebook too. Come and join the fun.

Screen or scroll - which do you prefer?

While the paperless office is still a pipedream right up there with jet-packing to work, the amount of time people are spending reading on a digital screen is now almost equal to time spent consuming printed paper text.

Ink and pixels are virtually on a par for many readers polled by Gartner.

But not all pixels are created equal. Reading on a mobile phone is a different proposition to the reading experience offered by a device such as an e-reader.

The survey found the type of device used to read digital text affects the reading experience, with 52 per cent of users of tablets such as Apple's iPad even finding screen reading easier than looking at printed text on an old-fashioned chunk of pulped tree.

Unsurprisingly, those irritating millennials are happier than older respondents when it comes to reading text on screen. The age group least satisfied with the on-screen reading experience is 40- to 54-year-olds. More men also typically prefer screen reading to women, the survey found. The Round-Up has no idea why.

For obvious reasons, the Round-Up has nothing against reading on screen, especially if what you're reading is this fine column. But while reading on a tablet or smartphone is a good way of establishing your status as a techno-hipster, it does limit the reading experience in important ways.

The Round-Up is talking about showing off, of course. Nothing says tortured intellectual like a copy of Albert Camus' The Plague being read ostentatiously on the bus in the morning.

The trouble with sitting there perusing an e-reader is that it makes it much harder to show off how clever you are. Which, for the Round-Up, is frankly a pretty big issue.

Of course, if you really want to show off your digital reading, why not go for the extravagant option? British luxury brand Alexander Amosu has launched a 24ct gold Amazon Kindle. While you can pick up a standard Kindle for £111, the Amosu Gold Kindle costs £1,199 and comes in 24ct yellow, white or rose gold with the option of Swarovski diamonds.

Feel like splashing out? Each unit can also be personalised and engraved, as a special request with a customised carry case.

And even if you are still doggedly insisting that the only way to read is on paper, the latest technology breakthrough might be able to persuade you to shift.

Scientists have developed a flexible mobile device that operates like a small sheet of interactive paper. Interesting? Read more and see the prototype here.

Elsewhere on silicon.com...

Our Robot Zoo is now open to the public, find out why Microsoft really wants Skype and check out the photos of the new web portal through which government information and services could be delivered. It's more exciting than it sounds, honest.