• Reuters, Wednesday, August 29, 2007 11:30 AM

Cyber-slacking off at work? You're not alone, according to a Reuters report. Citing various studies, the report says that employees on average spend about aone-fifth of their time at work not working. The Web is by far their favorite (and easiest to access) time waster.

In many ways, it's the ultimate temptation, says Patricia Wallace, a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. A recent survey from the firm Salary.com showed that six in 10 workers admitted to wasting time at work, while 34 percent listed the Web as the leading time waster. Boredom, long hours, being underpaid and a lack of challenge were listed as the main reasons.

Email is the No. 1 activity among cyberslackers, says James Philips, a psychology professor at Australia's Monash University, who found that roughly one-third of employee emails were not related to work. Other popular activities include managing finances, shopping online, and of course, social networking. Of course some companies crack down on cyber-slacking by imposing aggressive network filters, but they are circumvented by the rise of the mobile Web on cell phones. In a separate study an astonishing one-fifth of workers said they accessed sex sites at work.

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