If you are reading this at work, then you may actually be boosting your productivity. At least that is what one study claims. I think a group of researchers was just looking for a way to surf the web and have a good excuse when their boss catches them. What is your take on it? Are you more productive in an office environment that isn't constantly monitoring your computer activity?
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“Browsing the Internet serves an important restorative function,” according to a report from the National University of Singapore.
So-called cyberloafing can refresh workers mentally after long periods of work, researchers said at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management in San Antonio this week.
Surfing the Web is even better for productivity than talking or texting with friends or sending personal emails, the study found.
And smart bosses would stop snooping, researchers said: Excessive Internet monitoring and surveillance only makes employees do it more, they said.
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This type of thing is essential for what similar scientists have termed "Background Processing".
-You get a problem in-mind, do about as much work as possible on it, get to a stopping or block -point, and then,
You go out and do something Completely unrelated, play a game, an FPS, take a walk, do something mindless, field-strip and rebuild a handgun like Colm Meaney in "Layer Cake", etc.
-And then later on, your subconscious eventually returns its solution to you that it has produced while the rest of your mind was 'out to lunch'.
As long as it's not excessive or non-restorative, this is how many problems get solved.
-Edison himself used to background process with cat-naps.
I'm sure other guys like Tesla, Westinghouse, Marconi, DaVinci did similar things.
These studies prove that you're not going to get your best work out of people if you treat them line-deployed piecework machines.
They need Both mental-health and background-processing breaks.
Too bad management are some of the dumbest people in every corp.
It makes sense if you understand neurological processes like habituation...
I doubt a boss would tolerate "But playing Civ IV for 6 hours a day makes me really productive for the last 2 hours!"