New Survey: One thing you can't recycle is wasted time

As soon as I heard about today’s Pew Internet Trust and American Life Project survey that says most people surf the Internet for no particular reason—I immediately thought of our recent research showing that the leisure, or fun side of the web can often be tainted. For example, while doing research for our threat report we found that searching for breaking trends and current news represented a higher risk (22.4 percent) than searching for objectionable content (21.8 percent).

Most people get into trouble when they are busy doing something that isn’t useful—internet use included. OK, so what does this mean for you at work? Well, if you didn’t know it already, your new workforce is on the internet A LOT, and they expect to have internet access.

So, you’ve got workers wandering the net and at every moment they are just two clicks away from malware. Makes you stop and think a bit about the security defenses you have in place within your organization, doesn’t it?

The study says, “internet users of all ages are much more likely now than in the past to say they go online for no particular reason other than to pass the time or have fun. Some 58 percent of all adults (or 74 percent of all online adults) say they use the internet this way.”

“Young adults’ use of the internet can at times be simply for the diversion it presents. Indeed, 81 percent of all young adults in this age cohort report they have used the internet for this reason at least occasionally.”

And it’s not just the youngest that are wandering the internet in their spare time (at their lunch, or on a slow Friday, or Monday). More than 65 percent of those 30-49 exhibit the same behavior.

You can’t stop internet access and keep happy employees, but you can keep your organization safe.

Keep up with the latest in threats and threat research at the Websense Security Labs blog.