Workers wasting hours on the Net

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Surfing the Internet has replaced standing around the water cooler as corporate America's top time-wasting activity.

A survey shows that personal Internet use is the primary time-wasting activity at work, cited by 44.7 percent of respondents. Insurance companies lead in time wasted, and Missouri is the No. 1 state for time wasters.

More than 10,044 employees were asked to indicate how much time they wasted in an average eight-hour workday through a survey on the AOL Find a Job site, sponsored by Salary.com and AOL.

A 21-year-old public relations assistant in Washington says she uses the Internet for personal use about four hours a day on average.

"At work I pretty much stay on Instant Messenger, check my e-mail almost 10 times a day, check the weather online, find places to go," she said. "I spend time reading the paper and familiarizing myself with the world around me."

For obvious reasons, she would not give her name or company -- nor would any other workers interviewed for this article.

A 24-year-old radio broadcasting station researcher said the main reason she uses the Net so much is because there is not enough work for her to do.

"I'm on the Internet variously all day long," she said. "Given an eight-hour day, I probably waste three hours at least."

She says the time she spends on the Net is more like filling time rather than wasting time, she said.

"There's going to be times when I don't have anything to do, so I surf the Net," she said. "I'm not surfing the Internet when I'm supposed to be working."