If you are ever caught on Facebook or Twittering while at work, just tell your boss that doing so makes you a better employee; this according to a study from the University of Melbourne that shows employees surfing the Internet for personal reasons at work are about 9 percent more productive that those who do not.
Brent Coker, the studies author, said workplace Internet leisure browsing helped to sharpen workers' concentration "People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration. This enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a days' work, and as a result, increased productivity," Coker said.
According to the study of over three hundred workers, seventy percent of people who use the Internet at work engage in workplace Internet leisure browsing. Among the most popular activities are reading online news sites, searching for info about products and watching videos on YouTube. "Firms spend millions on software to block their employees from using social networking sites or shopping online because they believe that it costs millions in lost productivity," said Coker. "That's not always the case."
Its important to note however, that the study looked at people who browsed in moderation; otherwise were on the Internet for less than twenty percent of their total time in the office. Those who behave with Internet addiction tendencies had lower productivity than those without.
