In praise of WILB

Leave it to a social scientist to give you a fancy acronym for internet surfing.

Researchers at Australian University have identified Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing, or WILB, as a source of - get this! - increased productivity when confined to 20% or less of the workday.

Seventy percent of the office employees studies used the internet for personal business during the workday. Of those, 9% were more productive than workers who didn't surf.

The researchers defined WILB as "browsing the web for information and reviews of products, reading online news sites, playing online games, keeping up-to-date with friends activities on social networking sites." Though they singled out Facebook and Twitter as possible sources of improved productivity, I'm pretty sure that reading wedding blogs and websites falls under "browsing the web for information."

They noted that workers need micro-breaks to re-set their concentration. This restoration of concentration could lead to improved productivity.

There you have it: your free pass for reading blogs! Happy Monday!