WORKING
Thursday, March 29, 2007; Page D02
Online at the Office
Nearly two-thirds of office workers who responded to a recent survey admitted to looking at Web sites for personal interest every day on company time.
And when they do, they said, they're about as likely to look up encyclopedia entries as to discuss work or the boss.
The online survey of 633 workers was conducted by research firm Zoomerang on behalf of Clearswift, which makes content-filtering software.
More than four in 10 respondents said they went online several times a day to view blogs, photo-sharing sites or, most commonly, their Web-based e-mail. One in five of the respondents reports logging on once a day.
After e-mail and instant messaging sites, the most visited Web pages were online encyclopedias, such as Wikipedia.
Almost half of workers -- 46 percent -- say they have discussed work-related issues online, bragging about their sales numbers or ragging on a new corporate policy.
Despite corporate worries about damage to reputations or loss of trade secrets, only one in 10 workers reports discussing work in forums or chat rooms, while one in 20 does so on blogs.
-- Vickie Elmer
