Thanks to a new study from Hiroshima University, you can argue that your time spent swooning over adorable puppy pics on Reddit is justified. Turns out, taking a few minutes to look at a photo of something adorable (like Fay, the guide dog puppy featured above) will help you perform your duties more carefully later.
[S]cientists divided 132 university students into three groups and had them perform separate tasks. The first group played a game similar to "Operation" (the board game that challenges you to remove "body parts" from a graphic representation of a body using tweezers, buzzing when you make an error). The second group was asked to find a given number in a random sequence of numbers. The third group took a test designed to measure their level of focus. The members of each group completed one round of their respective tasks; at that point, half were shown images of baby animals while the other half were shown photos of adult animals. The groups were then asked to return to their tasks.
In all three tests, the group who looked at adorable kittens and babies beforehand performed better than the"neutral image" group. Good luck arguing your case to your employer, but if you can manage it, it may pay off to sneak in a little bit of Flickr browsing each morning. (I'll get you started off with some of our best animal-cuteness in the links below. ADORBZ.) Link
Photo: George Hawkins