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REAL LIFE NEWS: SURFING THE WEB AT WORK BOOSTS PRODUCTIVITY

by Hazed

Most bosses take a rather dim view of employees spending time surfing the web when they should be working. But a new study shows they would benefit from being more lenient, because sneaking a little bit of surfing into the working day increases overall concentration and productivity.

The study has been produced by Brent Coker from the University of Melbourne, and he said that people who indulge in short breaks for browsing are about 9% more productive than those that did.

"Firms spend millions on software to block their employees from watching videos on YouTube, using social network sites like Facebook or shopping online under the pretense that it costs millions in lost productivity, however that's not always the case," he reported on the university's website.

So long as the surfing is kept below 20% of the total time in the office, the productivity gains could be seen. The conclusion was drawn by observing 300 workers, 70% of which browsed the net.

So in an average seven and a half hour working day, that means you should spend one and a half hours NOT working but browsing. Hmmm, I can't see any boss believing that!

Coker may have a point, though. He says that a typical work day involves an overall goal broken into a series of small tasks. By rewarding the accomplishment of these tasks with "short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf on the internet" our concentration can reset itself. If we aren't given a break, our concentration slides down.

Presumably it's not surfing the web in itself that has this effect, it's taking a break to do something - anything - else. Making coffee, talking about sport, discussing what was on TV last night, staring out of the window... I would guess that all these things would help to "reset" the concentration too.

Still, it's a good reason for companies to turn off all those annoying web filters that prevent you from getting to your favorite sites!

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