Wasting time online? You might be mentally ill

It's always there. Waiting and calling to you. Fark. Reddit. Facebook. Dolphin Olympics. It may take only a couple minutes out of your day, but you know you're wasting time on this stuff whether you should be working on that spreadsheet or washing the dishes.

Time-wasting, or rather "chronic procrastination," is hardly a laughing matter, according to Professor Joseph Ferrari of Chicago's DePaul University. According to an insightful story in UK's Observer, it's a profound "social and economic" problem and, thanks to technology, it's far worse than you could ever imagine.

Procrastination isn't just idle laziness. There are real social consequences to wasting time. Per the story, "it encourages depression, lowers self-esteem, causes insomnia, and indirectly affects health by discouraging visits to the dentist or doctor. Sufferers are also more likely to have accidents at home involving unmended appliances." Makes sense if you think about it.

Of course, it's the economic impact that has businesses more concerned. Distractions aren't just limited to the lure of the web. That little chime that rings when an email message arrives, says research from Calgary University, causes a 0.5 percent drop in the Gross Domestic Product here in the United States, costing the country $70 billion a year, as employees are distracted from the task they're supposed to be focused on.

Tech is the real driver in this trend, which now impacts 1 in 4 people, up from 1 in 20 a few decades ago. But some scientists say procrastination is hard wired in our brains: People have always wasted time, and evolution may be responsible for developing an "automatic response" mechanism inside us, one which innately told us to drop the cave painting and run if a tiger came sniffing around the cave.

On the other hand, some say procrastination is still useful in tiger-free times: Earlier this year one study found that personal web use (including video games and social networking) helps employees get their jobs done more efficiently (and raises profits) by fostering a "trusting" environment and helping staffers feel at ease in the workplace. Obviously there's a fine line between "wasting time" and "taking a little break." Where that line actually falls remains a mystery.

Now stop reading blogs and get back to work.

LINK: Hi-tech is turning us all into time-wasters