The unspoken assumption in much of corporate America is that employees, when left to their own devices, will likely abuse social networking privileges while at work and harm company reputation.

Salesforce Rypple (via research from Pew Internet) set out to find just how badly people behave on social media and came up with some unexpected findings. The Pew research team studied the socio-emotional aspect of social networking to see how teens and adults interact on the social Web.

Among the findings:

• 69% of teens and 85% of adults feel that people are kind on the social Web.
• 58% of teens and 61% of adults feel that social networking made them feel closer to another person.

More than half of folks surveyed credit social network participation with improved self-esteem and stronger bonds with others.