Cyberloafing -- sizeable time spent on-line at work 'wasted'

[Hum]

Odds are, you?re reading this article when you?re supposed to be working.

A new study from Kansas State University suggests that we spend even more time than previously thought aimlessly browsing the Internet during our office hours.

?Cyberloafing? ? wasting time at work online ? takes up as much as 80 percent of the time people spend online at work, according to the data collected by Joseph Urgin, an assistant professor at Kansas State, and John Pearson, an associate professor at Southern Illinois University.

The results were published in the latest issue of the journal Computers in Human Behavior.

Their results also suggest that traditional work guidelines surrounding Internet use are not enough to police worker behavior, and that if companies really want to scale back the amount of time their employees spend surfing the Web, they must ?consistently enforce? sanctions to uphold their cyberloafing policies.

"We found that for young people, it was hard to get them to think that social networking was unacceptable behavior," Ugrin said. "Just having a policy in place did not change their attitudes or behavior at all. Even when they knew they were being monitored, they still did not care."

Ugrin and Pearson point out that cyberloafing also poses legal risks for companies, if their employees are engaging in activities like viewing pornography or taking part in illegal transactions.

full story

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

[posting from work] fortunately i work in a very relaxed environment where the attitude is "get the work done." I work when i have something to do; otherwise, im surfing, talking to friends and listening to music.

[Xilo]

[posting from work] fortunately i work in a very relaxed environment where the attitude is "get the work done." I work when i have something to do; otherwise, im surfing, talking to friends and listening to music.

Same. Plus other times surfing helps clear the mind after working stressfully on something.

[LaP]

While i agree in some case cyberloafing can be a problem (if you spend 6 hours of your 8 work day hours surfing) in most of the case it's not.

Let's be honest for a sec and not buy into this "everyone need to be workaholic" crap the media want to sell us. Almost nobody can work at 100% of his or her capacity for 8 straight hours. Not even 2 halves of 4 straight hours.

Most people can work for 2 and at best 3 hours straight before needing a 10-15 minutes break. Personally i prefer to take a 5 minutes break every hours. If you cut internet access people will talk, use the phone, will go outside. That might be better than surfing the web (not sure to be honest) but it's certainly not working and producing something for the company.

I work at the 9th floor. Going out for 5 minutes is not an option. It takes a whole 5 minutes just to go out ... talking with people is not always an option as they might have something else to do. So here and there i go here to read news for 5 minutes to change my mind from the lines of code i look at 8 hours a day. And i do it without any guilt.

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

When I used to worked, they tracked this sort of thing. Now I don't care.

[GrayW]

Most people can work for 2 and at best 3 hours straight before needing a 10-15 minutes break.

Then those people have never worked in a busy club behind a bar. :)

I do note however that you did say most.

[CactuzJak]

^{suppose on average i waste about 25% surfing the internet at work, but thats only because theres no calls to take, im not actively avoiding work}

[Hum]

I'm posting from an underground bunker, in between watching for incoming asteroids ! Relax ! :shifty:

[Growled Member]

I never post to here from work because it takes up too much of my time. I do, however, check my gmail and the weather and the news from time to time at work. Everyone needs a break, sometimes.

[Raa]

I think I might be doing that right now... :whistle:

[SadJoker]

[posting from work] fortunately i work in a very relaxed environment where the attitude is "get the work done." I work when i have something to do; otherwise, im surfing, talking to friends and listening to music.

This. I think a more relaxed attitude is better for productivity than strict micro-managing.

[FloatingFatMan]

If this were truly a problem then companies would block access to the internet, or at least anything not directly related to their business.

That they don't do that is quite telling really.

[LUTZIFER]

Does everyone here have an office job or something? Oh nevermind, I forgot about cellphones having internet access.

Yeah for awhile I too while at work, running a sidewinder or dozerboat, pushing bundles of logs around was surfin the net on my phones, usually watching porn, until I lost way to many overboard. Plus the data access was costing me a fortune.