Surfing the Internet at Work: A productive idea?

There is an interesting article here about productivity in the work place. Specifically, the article presents a study done by researchers in Australia involving workers and time spent surfing the internet. The study found that workers are 9% more productive when they are given time to sporadically surf the internet. Out of 300 workers 70% of them spent time during their work day surfing the web. In that time You Tube and Twitter were among the most popular sites.

The study found that people were more productive because they would then concentrate even more when they went back to work. It is the same principle as taking a break from intense work every 30-45 min. When a person is heavily engaged in a task they often function better when they take a break to recollect their thoughts every so often.

In theory the study makes sense. Everyone focuses better when they take breaks every so often. However, I find it interesting that the study is advocating letting workers surf the internet at work. The article did specify that in the study only workers surfing the internet for 20% or less of their day were studied and any more than that would be detrimental to their overall productivity. Still, the fact that businesses pay thousands or millions of dollars on software to prohibit people from surfing the web makes me think that companies would not buy into this idea regardless of the evidence. While this all sounds well and good, I do have some skepticism about companies buying in to letting their employees surf the internet. There is a very fine line between surfing the internet for a break and not being productive. I think that companies will not be able to monitor surfing properly and as a result will not endorse it, despite the benifits it might produce.