A survey of 3,000 office staff, by price comparison site GoCompare, found that people are stopping work to surf the web for an average of six hours and 23 minutes every week – nearly an entire working day.

Newspaper websites were the most popular ports of call, accounting for around a third of this. On top of this, an hour and half is spent on on-line shopping, a further hour and a quarter on social networking sites, 40 minutes on on-line banking, and the rest on playing computer games and watching videos of cats falling over amusingly (etc).
 

So why are we spending all this time not working? Well, one in five stated they were forced to do this stuff at work because of their hectic schedules. As GoCompare points out, we’re working longer hours than ever before – so doing stuff like on-line banking and shopping at work is the only way we can square the circle. If companies try and put a stop to this, they may end up alienating their staff.
 

The other point is that it’s actually good for us to remove our nose from the grindstone every now and then. In fact, two-thirds of those surveyed stated that an i-break leaves them feeling more refreshed and focused, and thus better able to cope with their workload. 
 

But then again, how much of a break is an i-break really?  If you think about it, staring at your screen for another hour isn’t much of a break from…staring at your screen all day. So maybe you’re better off stretching your legs and making a coffee.