Sometimes you’re at work and you just have to watch that one cute cat-/dog-/panda-playing-in-the-snow video. And then you spot that girl from high school on your Facebook feed and wonder what she’s been up to all these years … Would you look at that? It’s lunchtime! Time to skip out of work and wait in an obnoxiously long cafeteria line with your co-workers and dissect that cute animal video you just saw.
在工作中有時我們會在網上偷懶去看看小動物嬉戲打鬧的有趣視頻，有時Facebook上跳出提示讓你去看看高中時候的那位女同學現在怎么樣了，你會看嗎?午餐時間到了，是時候停下手頭工作去排那個糟心的午餐長隊了，順便和同事們聊聊剛才看的小動物視頻。
But exactly how much time are we wasting at work? That’s what a group of economists — Michael Burda, Kaie Genadek, and Daniel Hamermersh — wanted to find out, and they’ve published their results in a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper.
但工作中你到底會浪費多少時間呢?這正是Michael Burda，Kaie Genadek和Daniel Hamermersh這些經濟學家們想知道的，他們已經把結論在發布在新一期的國家經濟研究局刊物上了。
Using the self-reported American Time Use Survey, the economists found that, on average, workers spent about 34 minutes per day not working. Doesn’t seem a lot, right? But when the economists got rid of the people who claimed they didn’t spend any time slacking off (uh-huh, right), the figure rose to 50 minutes. About half that time wasted was spent on eating, the other half on “leisure” activities (watercooler break!).
通過“美國人時間利用自我報告調查”數據，經濟學家發現人均每天有34分鐘時間不花在工作上。看上去并不多，是嗎?但是當經濟學家把那些自稱沒有偷懶的人排除后，結論變成了50分鐘，其中一半花費在吃上面，另一半則是在“休閑”活動上(例如飲水休息)。
Perhaps unsurprisingly, not everyone wasted the same proportion of the workday. The authors explained that, all else being equal, the more someone worked, the higher the proportion of the time they slacked off — until about 42 hours a week. The more time in the office workers logged above this level, the less they slacked off, proportionally. Those eager-beaver, first-to-arrive-and-last-to-leave types seemed more capable of resisting the lure of internet cats than the rest of us.
不足為奇的是，工作日中每個人浪費的比例不同。作者解釋說，在其他條件都相同的前提下，工作量越多，偷懶休息的比例就越大，直到超過一周42小時。超過這一比例后放松偷懶的比例又會下降。那些起早貪黑辛勤工作的小蜜蜂們比我們更能夠抵御互聯網的誘惑。
Like any research based on self-reported statistics, there are some limitations here, simply because there could be various biases to how people estimated or reported the amount of time they spent slacking. It’s also important to realize that slacking tendencies may vary a great deal over time, depending on the economy. In a section of the paper titled “To Loaf or Not to Loaf: That Is the Question,” the economists note that recessions make slacking off more of a luxury than during a “normal” economy, as worker jobs hang in the balance and are at risk of being axed. The data was from 2003 to 2012, so it captured much of the recession, meaning it may be that we’re slacking more these days than we were back then, given that the economy’s a bit stronger.
和其他自我統計報告一樣，這份數據又有些不足，僅僅是因為人們對自己放松偷懶時間的統計估計方式存在差異。我們必須意識到，隨著經濟狀況的變化，放松偷懶的趨勢也會變化。在報道中有篇文章標題為“放松還是不放松，這是個問題”其中經濟學家指出經濟蕭條時期相比經濟正常的時候，人們認為工作中放松是件奢侈的事，因為蕭條時期工作不努力就可能被裁員。2003年到2012年的數據包含了蕭條時期，現在人們的偷懶時間更多也說明現在的經濟狀況比之前好些。
But maybe the simpler point to keep in mind here is that not all slacking is bad. In fact, as the Science of Us noted earlier this month in a video, taking breaks is a good thing, both for your mind and creative output. Afternoon naps are a treasured part of Japanese work culture, and working for more than four and a half hours at a time actually leads to a diminishing rate of productivity. In fact, some researchers think the ideal work/break balance comes out to 17 hard-earned minutes of fun time for every 52 minutes of work. If you calculate that for a ten-hour day, that comes out 147.8 minutes — or over two hours — of “loafing” time.
但也許我們需要記得的是，不是所有的偷懶都是壞事。事實上，正如Science of Us在月初的視頻節目中提到的那樣，休息放松對思考和創造力都有好處。在日本午睡也是種工作文化，連續不斷工作超過4.5小時會降低生產力。研究表明每工作52分鐘休息17分鐘是比較理想的工作方式。如果以一天來計算，那么就得出一天可以休息2個多小時。
So take heart, worker: You’re not a lazy bum straight off the set of The Office. You’re merely taking a brain break.
所以請記住：你不是辦公室懶人，你只是讓大腦休息下而已。
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