Surfing the Web at work is an increasingly common habit that could be even more addictive than coffee, according to new research into Internet usage in the office. 

    According to the survey, 93 percent of all employees in the U.S. spend at least some of their time at work accessing the Web, up from 86 percent a year ago, and many of them are logging on for personal reasons. 

    Among those, 52 percent said they would rather give up their morning caffeine hit than lose their Internet connection. 

    The average time spent accessing the Internet at work was 12.6 hours per week. But while employees estimated that 3.4 hours of that time was due to non-work related surfing, IT managers put that figure at closer to six hours. 

    "As the line between professional and personal usage of the Internet becomes more of a gray area, many employees have started to rely on it to complete their job duties as well as perform personal tasks during the work day," said Geoff Haggart of Internet firm Websense, which conducted the survey. 

    The most popular Web sites accessed were news sites (81 percent), personal email (61 percent), online banking (58 percent), travel (56 percent) and shopping (52 percent). 

    More men than women -- 62 percent compared with 54 percent -- admitted visiting non-work related Web sites at the office. 

    Men were 2.3 times more likely to visit sports sites and more than three times as likely to visit investment and stock purchasing sites. Almost a quarter of men also admitted visiting a porn site at work, although only 17 percent said they had done so deliberately. 

    As well as surfing the Internet, 18 percent of workers said they listened to or watched streaming media and 16 percent said they used instant messaging, although two-thirds of companies said IM usage wasn’t sanctioned. 

    But while Internet use may be on the rise, it appears that companies have got wise to employees using their office hours to play computer games. Just six percent of workers owned up to playing games, down from 14 percent a year ago. 

    一項對辦公室互聯網使用狀況的最新研究表明，在工作時間上網逐漸成為上班族們的習慣，這甚至比喝咖啡更容易上癮。 

    研究結果表明，全美93%的員工至少將部分工作時間用來上網，這個數字高于一年前的86%。而且他們中有很多人上網是因為私事。 

    在這些人中，52%的受調查者表示他們寧可放棄早上的咖啡時光，也不愿意把自己的電腦從互聯網上斷開。 

    在工作時上網平均花費的時間是每周12.6小時，但員工們估計其中有3.4小時貢獻給了與工作無關的沖浪活動，而IT經理們則認為這一數字接近6個小時。 

    “隨著網絡的工作用途和私人用途之間的界限越來越模糊，很多員工在開始依靠互聯網完成工作任務的同時，也會在工作時間順便處理一些私事。”負責這次調查的Websense網絡公司的喬夫·哈賈特說。 

    最受歡迎的站點有新聞網站(81%)、個人郵箱(61%)、網上銀行(58%)及旅游(56%)和購物(52%)網站。 

    和女性相比，更多的男性承認在辦公室里訪問過和工作無關的網站，承認此事的兩性比率分別約為62%和54%。 

    男性訪問體育網站的幾率是女性的2.3倍，訪問炒股網站的幾率則是女性的三倍多。幾乎有1/4的男人表示自己在工作時間訪問過色情網站，盡管只有17%承認他們是故意的。 

    除了上網沖浪外，18%的上班族表示他們會收聽或收看網絡數據流媒體，還有16%的人承認使用即時消息聊天，盡管2/3的公司禁止員工使用網絡聊天工具。 

    但是，當網絡的使用越來越普及的時候，公司似乎識破了在辦公時間打電玩的員工的詭計。僅有6%的員工坦白承認曾在辦公時間打電子游戲，比一年前的14%有所降低。