So before social media productivity was higher? Or people found other ways to avoid work?

I suppose it's difficult to compare like with like since so much has changed through the years: automation, the move from a manufacturing-biased economy to a service-industry economy with low-paid McJobs, automation and the computer revolution in the office. The de-unionisation of the workplace. But it's never been so easy for lightly-supervised office staff in particular to goof-off while appearing to be working.

Why worry, the bosses of these companies seem to have unlimited money to burn, the government just print more when they've frittered the last lot they took from us away, presumably the housing bubble on which the whole ponzi scheme is based will cure all ills cos it can only continue to expand, what could possibly go wrong?

Edited by gordonbennet on 17/03/2016 at 22:53

It's probably no worse than the amount of productivity lost to smoking breaks.

When I was young I worked in a factory where some old bag of a supervisor and her 2 favorite girl workers would spend 20mins pers hour in the womens toilets on a smoking break, then she tried to berate me for talking to a co worker for 1 minute. She was not happy when I pointed out that for every hour of the day we were losing 1 man hour of work due to her smoking party.

When I was young and worked in factories and offices, everyone smoked while they worked, so it wasn't reducing productivity.

Apart from coal mines and petrol refineries, this was the case everywhere till elf and safety campaigns succeeded in getting it banned (except in jail!).