Cyberloafing costs U.S. businesses as much as $85 billion a year, according to studies by the University of Nevada.
Employee interviews by Kansas State University show that some workers admitted to spending 60 to 80 percent of their time cyberloafing.
That's really a form of theft, since an employer doesn't get the time that is paid for.
There are a lot of systems out there designed to fight it.
One designed by Arizona State University, divides Internet sites into those that always, sometimes, or never be visited. It uses on-screen warnings and reminders when employees are visiting sites that may not be work-related. The designers say it results in far less cyberloafing.
The system totally blocked websites that ate up the company's bandwidth, like video sites, or that could cause legal issues, like pornography sites. It just gave warnings for sites that could be needed for work but were often visited for personal use.
The system allowed employees to browse leisure sites for 10 minutes at a time. If they spend 90 minutes in all, they were blocked from the sites and had to explain to their managers why they needed more time.
Companies throughout the world are looking to solve the problem.
