According to the Confederation of British Industry, UK workers are spending an average of 90 minutes every week online on tasks not related to work. At an average, employees waste 4.4 per cent of their working time this way. It is almost equal to a loss of 10 days every year costing £939 per employee. The research covered around 503 organisations. It is found that around 60 per cent of employers believe that the workers access the internet for personal use at times other than lunchtime and formal breaks.

The Confederation of British Industry says that some companies are bogged down with issues of misuse of internet access. Thus, almost 54 per cent of the companies restrict the online access of employees during work hours. About 14 per cent of the employers have restricted it altogether. However, there are companies that feel no reason to restrict personal internet use as long as the work is done. In fact, they feel that that letting people surf the net would actually boost their productivity.

Research conducted by web monitoring group Nielsen Online have found that people are actually spending around four per cent more time on the internet if we compare the statistics a year ago. It also found that people are spending more time on generated content and search and less on instant messaging.