Workers waste a quarter of online time

Employees spend 25 per cent of online time accessing sites not related to work, according to a report out today from CheckNet.
The firm's Surfwatch sofware analyses the Internet activities of staff during working hours for companies in Europe and the US, so managers can monitor bandwidth usage.
The amount of time wasted is up 6.5 per cent from three months ago, but Theresa Marcroft, author of the report said: "Work slows down during the summer months and people have more time for recreational surfing."
Paul Jackson, consultant at Deloitte & Touche, said: "This is an alarming statistic for IT managers who have sold the Internet as a useful business resource. Most organisations would like their staff's attention to be exclusively focused on work, but that is just not what happens. It is also difficult to measure private Internet use against private telephone or fax use."
The report also found that workers are now more interested in general news sites than sexually explicit material. But Jackson said: "I am not surprised sexually explicit viewing has fallen because the novelty factor has died down and most people work at desktops that can be easily viewed by colleagues, also most sexual sites are pay per view now."