Wilfing: The new internet black

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So you're reading IT PRO, and not aimlessly surfing the internet looking for... well, nothing in particular really. But admit it, that's what you'll probably do later. If not, then perhaps tomorrow while at work in between rattling off an e-mail and making sure your sandwiches are not wilting.

There's been a study, you see. One which claims that seven out of 10 of Britain's 34 million web users have fallen into the habit of 'wilfing', a new term which stands for What Was I Looking For and which, loosely translated, means idly sitting at your computer and merrily working your way through shopping sites, blogs, news sites and any other random pages you come across via search engines like Google.

As if to highlight this growing trend, I found out about wilfing while wilfing, ironically enough. I'd gone online to find out how my football team was getting on and ended up mindlessly clicking for 30 minutes or so, landing on the BBC website and seeing the headline, "Scots come tops for web 'Wilfing'" Thinking it was some bizarre wife-stealing phenomena via the internet north of the border (a combo of 'wife' and 'pilfering'), I clicked on it, discovered this new, made-up-by-PR-men term and continued with my very own wilfing session.

But not before I learned a few things. Apparently, web users spend, on average, two full working days each month being distracted by pages on the net, whether at home or at work.

And top of the sites visited by the 2,412 adults across the UK polled by YouGov were shopping, news and travel pages. The poll also suggested that even logging on for a specific purpose led many to be distracted. As for those Scots, well, 63 per cent of them admit to wilfing "all or some of the time."

While this sounds harmless enough - after all, how many of us spend many more hours vegetating in front of the television mindlessly absorbing the output from programmes ranging from Deal or No Deal to Wife Swap? - there were three nuggets of information which stood out.

One was that it could harm relationships; second was that women aimlessly surf less than men; and third was that adult entertainment websites are among the most distracting. That, it seems, sounds like a bit of a vicious circle: Surf the net, split with girlfriend, shrug it off and go back to the web for substitute 'entertainment.'

Suddenly, it doesn't sound too healthy.

A few issues ago IT PRO's sister title Micro Mart looked at the subject of internet addiction, and wilfing appears to be a part of that. We discussed then how China, for instance, is taking steps to curb web use.

Well, since that article was published the Chinese government has put a time limit on playing online games, with under-18s now restricted to no more than three consecutive hours each day. When they play beyond that time, a limit is imposed as to the amount of points they can score. This restriction comes on top of a ban on new cyber cafes and the setting up of military-style boot-camps aimed at pulling web-addicted children away from the net.

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