Personal Surfing: A Part Of Workday, So Deal With It

from the not-all-bad dept

For years, plenty of people have been saying that personal surfing at work can be good. It's a way for people to relieve some stress, fill in the downtime when they wouldn't be productive anyway, and allow them to get other things done that would take them away from work anyway. Also, it tends to make workers happier. Obviously, it can be abused, but as long as the employee is getting his or her work done, does it really matter? Especially in an age where employees are increasingly expected to be "available" 24/7, personal surfing of the web at work should be expected -- and in some cases encouraged. The interpretation of a new survey (which doesn't seem all that scientific, actually) seems to support this idea, by saying that people are doing much more than expected personal surfing at work (about 2 hours a day), but that it's often "creativity enhancing" -- either by having that surfing be about stuff that may come back to help on the job, or by letting the mind wander so it can solve some work related problems.

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