CYBERSPACE – Although news surfing and email are the most likely activity for employee’s who use the internet for personal reasons while at work, a sizable percentage of men and women still surf for porn while on the company clock. According to a recent survey conducted by the company Websense, 23 percent of male workers have accessed pornography from work, while 12 percent of women have done the same.While the number of men who claim that they have intentionally sought internet pornography while at work drops to 17 percent, a drop of 6 points over those who have viewed pornography at work independent of intention, the drop is only one point for women, where 16 percent have intentionally sought out porn through their work computers.
Outraged employers, however, will note that according to the Websense survey, the vast majority of personal internet use at work comes from news surfing and email. Of the non-work related employee surfers, 81 percent view news websites on the clock, and 61 percent use email for personal purposes. Other categories trumping porn are online banking at 58 percent, online travel sites at 56 percent, and online shopping at 52 percent.
Ninety-three percent of the employees surveyed responded that they use their company’s internet access for at least some personal activities, which was a seven point increase over the 2004 survey. But personal internet use accounts for an average of just 3.4 hours per week, less than the predictions of IT decision makers.
Following web surfing and email use, the next most popular non-work internet activities are streaming media at 18 percent of respondents, and instant messaging at 16 percent.
“As the line between professional and personal usage of the internet becomes more of a grey area, many employees have started to rely on the internet to complete their job duties as well as perform personal tasks during the work day,” said Geoff Haggart, vice president of Websense Europe. “In addition, with the sheer quantity and variety of websites and applications readily available, many employees are either not admitting to, or most likely not aware of, how much time they are really spending on personal surfing.”
