Are You Working or ‘Cyberloafing’? Study Says You’re Loafing, Sorry…

For all the furious typing your co-workers do each day, you’d think that they’re being really productive. As it turns out, they’re probably just emailing friends or ordering six pairs of shoes (five of which they’re going to return) from Zappos. A study by researchers at Kansas State University and Southern Illinois University found that 60 to 80 percent of a typical employee’s time is spent “cyberloafing,” which is using the Internet to do tasks not related to work.


Not surprisingly, younger generations surf the web more, but older employees are plenty guilty of surfing the web on company time. Age plays a role in what you’re checking out online: kids these days are looking at each other on social networks. Older employees are checking financial sites. Interestingly, employees often don’t feel that they’re doing anything wrong by surfing the Internet at work. Obviously, many companies try to counter this behavior by watching employee surfing habits (or threatening to).

So, it might help your productivity a bit to assess just how much time you’re spending online at work. No need to cut us out of your favorites list, though. If your boss calls you out on it, just point out that she reads HotHardware every day, too.