Show This To Your Boss. Why Online Shopping At Work Could Help You Perform Better!
We walk in at work on a Monday morning, armed with the necessary weapons to survive the day – coffee, our fav podcast and memes. Even though the weekend was nothing but chilling and catching up on zzzs, we still find ourselves struggling between keeping our eyes open and getting fired for sleeping at work.
We pledge to make the day more productive (every Monday) and impress our unappreciative boss, the carrot of a promotion dangling over our heads. By the time it’s lunch hour, you’ve practically sunken into your seat, the mind is starting to weigh the options of what sounds better for lunch and you are drawn into the world where shopping becomes important. You want that dress you’ve seen on that website. You make up events to where you can wear it. That belt bag is an all-consuming thought and it’s almost an emergency to buy it like right away!
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Apparently, online shopping or basically using the internet for personal entertainment during work hours could be damaging your career, one click at a time. A study published in The Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace says that surfing the internet at work is a Counterproductive Work Behavior, suggesting that your productivity deteriorates if you steal a few minutes of online shopping at work! This is called Cyberloafing.
Also, Matthew McCarter, Associate Professor of Management at The University of Texas at San Antonio had earlier told Science Daily that 14% of an employee’s time is spent on recreational browsing of the internet. He also revealed that each time an employee’s work is interrupted by digital interests, it takes them at least 23 minutes to find focus again. Technically, yes, that’s a lot of time wasted, especially if you didn’t even buy that dress!
Honestly, that doesn’t speak well for spending time at work browsing for leisure and you’re wondering why we though it was a good idea to show your boss this article. Here’s why. In a study titled Computers in Human Behavior, they found that spending a little time internet surfing can actually make you more productive…and innovative too! They identified it as a coping mechanism employees pick to deal with overload or underload boredom.
Which makes us conclude, that browsing the internet during work hours is definitely okay, as long as you don’t overdo it. If you use it as an activity that helps you clear your mind, it will actually make you perform better. So the next time your boss hovers over you when you are buying those shoes or stalking Vicky Kaushal on Instagram, show them this article and tell them your performance is only going to get better from here on.
