People fritter away their working day looking at online nonsense.

We all know that.

Some of us know that from doing it, and some of us from witnessing it being done. If you are one of the 3% of people in your workplace who actually do all the work, then you have my sympathy.

Go on, treat yourself. Have half an hour of online you-time on me.

Feel better?

Ok…back to work, slacker!

Back in pre-internet times (always the 1970’s in my mind’s eye) slackers used to slack in full view. Monday mornings were feet up with the newspaper while everyone got brains into gear. Friday afternoons were for the pub.

In-between, wandering around with a piece of paper looking busy or grabbing twenty minutes in a vacant toilet cubicle were the accepted, union-approved methods of slacking.

Now, the 97% of us (ahem…them) who slack, are locked together in a pact. No-one wants to derail the gravy train, so none of us (ahem…them) call each other on it.

But I have a theory.

Yes, the problems of the world may well be rooted in our accelerated and out-of-control digital sphere, but not because of algorithms, or Russian agents, or Google.

No.

It’s because 97% of us are able to slack like never before.

In the 1970’s my rough estimates suggest that 41% of all time at work was wasted. In 2017, with the worm-hole of the internet swallowing us up, that figure will be more like 86%.

All that work not getting done is leading to lots of massive problems not being solved.

Brexit negotiations? We’d be a lot better prepared if David Davis could tear himself away from YouTube for five minutes.

Global warming? Lazy-arsed scientists trying to perfect the amoeba meme.

Global financial crash? Actually, they’re the exception to prove the rule. Get the bankers into Minecraft and as far away from the financial markets as possible.

That way the damage can be minimised.

In generations gone by it was imagined that technology would solve the future. We’d find the holy grail of greater productivity and more leisure time. That now seems laughably innocent.

This theoretical leisure time consisted of picnics in the park and games of hide-and-seek with the kids. But as we all know, the devil makes work for idle hands.

Not that i’m saying the internet is the devil. Or that you’re idle.

You made that connection yourself.

(Image: pixabay.com)