The Top Ten Ways Workers Waste Time Online
1. Social Networks – 1.24 hr/week
Social networking has come to dominate Internet use. Facebook
alone has more than 500 million unique visitors per month, representing
85% of all social media use. According to the company’s site, users
spend more than 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook. One would
assume that some of those minutes have to be from work. Nucleus
Research, an IT research firm, found that 77% of employees who have
access to Facebook from work check it at least once a day. Of course,
other large and fast-growing social media sites such as Twitter also
contribute to the loss in productivity.
2. Online Games – 0.56 hr/week
The popularity of online games has increased and is now only second
to social networking. Employees visit gaming sites to play basic
arcade games, online poker and Scrabble. However, part of the popularity
of online games may be due to the growing usage of social networks.
Zynga, one of the most popular online game companies, owes much of its
success to the fact that its games, including the huge hit Farmville,
are promoted through Facebook. According to the game’s Facebook page,
Farmville has more than 62 million active users.
3. E-mail – 0.45 hr/week
Once the primary means of online communication, e-mail has become
less popular, dropping from 11.5% of what people do online to 8.3% in
the past year. Social networking, once again, has begun to show its
face, becoming a more popular way to keep in touch for many people. Of
course, given how much American business relies on e-mail communication,
dropping a personal e-mail during working hours will never go
completely out of style.
4. Portals – 0.24 hr/week
Portals, which constitute 4.4% of users’ online time, underwent a
double-digit decline in time share from one year ago. Still, they are
the fourth most heavily used online resource. This means that people
still rely heavily on sites such as AOL, Yahoo!, and MSNBC as their
gateway to the Web. Given that so many people use e-mail accounts
provided by one of these providers, it suggests that this number has at
least one reason to remain somewhat constant.
5. Instant Messaging – 0.22 hr/week
Instant Messaging is another activity that has likely decreased in
popularity as a result of social networking. Sites that combine
communication with other services naturally do better, even though
simple messaging maintains some workers’ interest. Another reason for
the decrease may be the ubiquity of texting via cell phones.
6. Fantasy Football – 0.12 hr/week (during season)
Fantasy football has quickly become a national obsession,
and during football season there is almost nothing employers can do to keep
participants’ attention from it. The hobby, which requires at least an hour’s
worth of attention every week, undoubtedly adds a certain amount of drag to many
businesses. According to some reports, fantasy football caused $9 billion in
lost productivity in 2009 alone.
7. Pornography – 0.13 hr/week
Although it is shocking, a 2010 Nielsen study found that
29% of workers have looked at pornography while at work. That number, which
amounts to 21 million Americans, suggests that more people are spending time
looking at “adult content” while at work than they are reading about current
events. In support of these extreme numbers, the study found that 70% of all
pornography traffic occurs between 9am and 5pm. What is the average amount of
time each of these workers spends on adult websites per session? 12 minutes and
38 seconds.
8. Videos/Movies – 0.21 hr/week
Online interest in videos and movies is growing, with the
number of U.S. videos streamed reaching nearly 10 billion in August. A
significant portion of those views are attributable to Google’s YouTube, the 3rd
most visited site on the Web. According to comScore, more than 161 million
people watched an average of 157 videos in August. The average online viewer
watched 9.7 hours during that time. The average duration of videos was 3.7
minutes.
9. Search – 0.19 hr/week
Although Google has more users than any other website, the
amount of time spent searching is relatively low. That fact remains true during
work hours, where the time spent searching is also relatively low compared to
other more popular online activities. Still, the amount of money lost to time
spent on personal searches is estimated by sources to be significant. According
to a study by RescueTime, when Google replaced its home page logo with Pac-Man –
the playable version of the classic game – earlier this year, it cost the
economy a total of 4,819,352 hours of productivity, which researchers estimated
was worth over $120 billion in potential productivity.
10. Online Shopping – 0.15 hr/week
Online shopping, while not everyone’s vice, can drain
workers’ productivity. Sites such as Amazon and Ebay are extremely popular, and
often take priority at work. This is even more evident around the holiday
season. In 2009, IT information association ISACA estimated that the average
employee would spend 14.4 hours shopping from the office around the
holidays.
-Charles B. Stockdale, Douglas A. McIntyre
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