Ann Gadd

OK. Public announcement. I admit it. I am an addict.

I’m a cyber-junkie.

Hooked on e.

A net narcotic.

(They say that the sooner you admit to your addiction, the sooner you can overcome it. This is my attempt to go public).

I love the internet. The streams of joke emails, emails promising me a vast inheritance from a hidden stash in some North African country, channelled messages from an assortment of angels, Viagra and chain letters promising wealth and abundance if I only pass them on, download faster and with as much relish as I can eat a bar of 70% pure dark chocolate.

Has the internet and emailing has made your life more efficient?

Yes, most of the more than 300 million users worldwide would agree. But studies are showing otherwise. The hours we spend sending emails and surfing the web are more often than not a way of procrastinating, rather than being productive. If we are sitting in front of a computer, we feel we must be being productive, even if we are only passing on chain-mail junk to our buddies.

Now I would not have cast myself in the role of cyber junkie, (I do need to use the internet as part of my job after all!) That was until I lost connection for 2 days, 11 hours and 43 minutes, and a few seconds, by which time I was eyeing the empty inbox with the same obvious lust that I would look at Keanu Reeves. The recent power failures haven’t helped and at the slightest hint of the power returning I have to apply extreme self discipline not to head immediately for the tantalising delights of the monitor.

Yet with all its claim to enhance our lives and productivity, Internet subscribers seem to have found a highly effective tool for procrastination. In a study done in the USA with men and women, results showed that over 50% of internet users used the internet frequently as a way to avoid doing tasks they did not want to do, and that of the time spent online, almost half of it was used doing non job related tasks. Over 80% also found that they always ended up spending more time on the internet than they had planned. What’s more participants viewed this time as a form of entertainment and stress release.

We can create the illusion of working and accomplishing a task, while actually taking frequent and costly breaks as far as the employer is concerned. If we are procrastinators by nature, and many of us are, we enjoy tasks with minimum commitment, which we don’t have to alter location to perform and which have no obvious negative repercussions. Add to this the numerous tempting hyperlinks offering cute dates, the latest music, shopping or rewards for being the 1 000 000 person to visit a site and we are hooked.

We believe that because we are utilizing computer technology, and because it is speeding up almost monthly, that the computer will manifest superior wisdom and efficiency in our careers. We also believe that since we are on the computer we must be performing efficiently, despite our knowing deep down that this is not so. In another poll 90% of interviewed employees were surfing the internet for information completely irrelevant to their jobs. This I know only too well when a five minute search for some relevant information turns into a lost two hours finding out about everything but that which I had originally sought.

This trend, known as “cyberslacking” is on the increase, as employees become ever cleverer in avoiding being caught by supervisors. Instead of staying with a task, we use the downloading emails or surfing the web as an excuse to take continual short breaks, which offer immediate rewards, instead of the possible long-term reward of the job we are supposed to be doing.

We have also become used to watching TV where programs are constantly interrupted by commercials; consequently we have adopted this in our approach to working. We work in short spurts – requiring constant entertainment breaks. If we smoke that’s one form of break when we have to go outside for a few social puffs, but for most of us, the internet provides an even simpler solution. The chat rooms also promise a deeply captivating experience - wild fantasies are allowed to run riot over the predictable mundaneness of reality, which is another way to while away the need to actually do what you should be doing.

Breaks, whether they are downloading the latest gag, special offers on computer essentials or having a fag, provide a degree of stress release and reduce anxiety. It’s no wonder then that we are increasingly drawn to them - its escapist behaviour. Yet the very action of spending more time on the internet ironically increases stress, as we delay doing the tasks we are supposed to be doing. It becomes a downward spiral of avoidance, reduced productivity and increased anxiety, which leads to regret and guilt, (sometimes even depression) which causes greater stress, which we relieve by Web surfing.

So the next time your hand hovers over your mouse, ask yourself if what you are doing is really beneficial to the task at hand, or if you are simply using your internet as a means to procrastinet.