Is Google Earth currently the biggest threat to productivity in the workplace?

Something of a rhetorial question, this one, and there’s no doubting that hours lost to idle internet browsing is a concern for businesses. Software packages, designed to monitor and control our surfing habits, come laden with warnings: 2.09 hours per day are lost to non-work-related activity. Idle surfing accounts for lost productivity amounting to $5,000 per employee per year. “The responsibility of open web access is too much for some employees to handle,” says another.

Google Earth is undoubtedly contributing to this situation. Addictive in the extreme, it provides aerial pictures of the globe, giving us a satellite’s eye view of country lanes, waterfalls, volcano craters – and consigns any small titbits you may have learnt on a time management course to the dustbin of history. Whole working days slip by while you gently hover over Bedfordshire at 5,000 feet, and as I focused the crosshair on my parents’ house the other day, I wasted precious time discussing with my mother when that particular aerial shot was taken. “We sold that red car in February 2004,” she said, “And you can see flowers in the garden, so it must be summer. Terry next door, now he’s had two cars the same colour, so which is it? And when did we got rid of that compost heap?” Sites such as googlesightseeing.com suggest that many people do little else other than cruise around the planet from the comfort of an office chair, unearthing such oddities such as the Lancaster bomber flying over Huntingdon, or the 40-metre profanity carved into a field outside Billingley, Yorkshire.

As to whether it’s the biggest threat to productivity, your responses this week contained a number of challengers to Google Earth’s crown, even aside from the usual culprits of Wikipedia, YouTube and Flickr. As we’re on the downward slope to Christmas, I’m sure your bosses won’t mind me sharing them with you, although don’t blame me if you get hauled in for a disciplinary. “I spend a lot of time on librarything.com, a social networking site based around the contents of your bookshelf,” writes Karren Taylor, “and, for some reason, neopets.com. Don’t ask.” Jeff Thomas is seduced by www.oedilf.com, a resource of 35,000 original limericks, while Nicola Marsh prefers the well-ordered world of listography.com, where compulsive list-makers soothe themselves in bullet-point heaven. “Checking my statistics on www.last.fm is a recurring problem,” writes Paul Glazer, who has, like many, discovered the attraction of comparing ones own listening habits with those of other people. Janet Glover has dangerous suggestions for puzzle addicts: “I spend far too much time at both playbabble.com and ironsudoku.com,” she says – but the ultimate comes from Lena Carlsson, whose single line email – “weboggle.shackworks.com is like crack” – nearly prevented me from meeting my deadline for this column. Word puzzle fans beware.