{"id":3004,"date":"2011-08-31T14:28:57","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T18:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adam-jackson.net\/blog\/?p=3004"},"modified":"2011-08-31T14:28:57","modified_gmt":"2011-08-31T18:28:57","slug":"your-personal-time-is-costing-the-company-money-about-280000000000-per-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/08\/31\/your-personal-time-is-costing-the-company-money-about-280000000000-per-year\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2605 &#8220;Your Personal Time Is Costing the Company Money (About $280,000,000,000 Per Year)&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thefitzpatricks.net\/2011\/07\/26\/facebook-costs-us-employers-280000000000-per-year\/\">Michael Fitzpatrick<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>That productivity boost got me thinking about what else we all spend our time on during the course of a workday that might impact productivity.\u00a0 A quick\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.flurry.com\/bid\/63907\/Mobile-Apps-Put-the-Web-in-Their-Rear-view-Mirror\">search<\/a>\u00a0will tell you that Americans are spending, on average, 14 of their 74 minutes of online time on Facebook.\u00a0 Mobile time spent might be more significant, but I don\u2019t have ready access to those distribution stats.<\/p>\n<p>Using that astonishing statistic, let\u2019s make a few assumptions as inputs into our model.\u00a0 First, I\u2019ll assume that people are spending only 50% of their total Facebook usage during a given day during work hours.\u00a0 After all, we are hard working Americans\u2026right?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Time Spent On Facebook During Workday:\u00a0 7 minutes<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Next up, how many of us are sitting in front of computers with internet access each workday?\u00a0 As a proxy, I\u2019ll use the \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Knowledge_worker\">knowledge worker<\/a>\u201d profile with an\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.closingamericasjobgap.com\/are-you-a-knowledge-worker\/\">estimate<\/a>\u00a0of 30% of us American workers fall into.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Total Number of Internet-Connected Workers:\u00a0 48,000,000 (30% of roughly\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/empsit.nr0.htm\">160M workers<\/a>)<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ok, now let\u2019s put these together to show how much time collectively we are spending on Facebook:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>48,000,000 worker * 7 minutes per day = 336,000,000 minutes per workday<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Yikes, that\u2019s a big number.\u00a0 But how can we translate that into cost-per-employee?\u00a0 Based on an average salary guestimate of $50,000 and 2000 work hours per year, we can assume a per-minute cost-per-employee of around $0.40\/minute.\u00a0 If we take that cost-per-minute and apply it to time employees are spending on Facebook, we get a big number\u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Daily Productivity Cost due to Facebook Browsing:\u00a0 $140,000,000<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If we apply that to annual cost, we end up with a really scary number:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Annual US Employer Cost due to Facebook Browsing:\u00a0 $28,000,000,000<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div>It&#8217;s easy to say Facebook is to blame but if it wasn&#8217;t Facebook, it would be something else.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Fitzpatrick: That productivity boost got me thinking about what else we all spend our time on during&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-linked","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-Ms","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1842,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/03\/15\/i-still-dont-think-apple-has-found-the-sweet-spot-for-the-ipads-usage\/","url_meta":{"origin":3004,"position":0},"title":"\u2605 &#8220;I still don\u2019t think Apple has found the sweet spot for the iPad\u2019s usage&#8230;&#8221;","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"March 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I wrote an iPad review on August 20th of last year. In that review, I wrote: I\u2019ve already decided that iPad is not for getting work done. It\u2019s meant to be a free-time machine. A machine that is there for you when you want to consume content. A machine that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"iPad 2 Launch- Austin, TX (At SXSW 2011)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5220\/5518878198_0dc3421ffe_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5220\/5518878198_0dc3421ffe_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5220\/5518878198_0dc3421ffe_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7410,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2018\/04\/07\/linked-i-spent-one-hour-with-mark-zuckerberg-and-heres-everything-i-learned\/","url_meta":{"origin":3004,"position":1},"title":"Linked: &#8220;I spent one hour with Mark Zuckerberg and here&#8217;s everything I learned&#8230;&#8221;","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"April 7, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I spent one hour with Mark Zuckerberg and here's everything I learned about user data, elections, fake news, and the future of Facebook | LinkedIn: That\u2019s the title Brian gave his post on LinkedIn. I read the headline, saw the author and thought \u201cI know Brian is a big-wig but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12976,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2025\/07\/30\/musings-about-chatgpt-and-llms-how-i-use-these-tools-today-in-2025\/","url_meta":{"origin":3004,"position":2},"title":"Musings about ChatGPT and LLMs &#8211; How I use these tools today in 2025","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"July 30, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I have been paying for ChatGPT at $20 a month for close to a year, and since I'm averse to subscriptions, it's time to think about the value and determine if I want to continue, but also maybe muse for a bit about technology on the larger personal scale between\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5057,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2015\/10\/05\/linked-ios-9-in-review-ipad-productivity\/","url_meta":{"origin":3004,"position":3},"title":"Linked: &#8220;iOS 9 in review: iPad productivity&#8221;","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"October 5, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"via Six Colors: (they recently went through a re-design! I love the new site) With iPad sales flagging, Apple has finally brought a bunch of iPad-only features to iOS 9, focusing mostly on accessing multiple apps and making better use of keyboards (of both the off-screen and on-screen variety.) I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3332,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/12\/07\/goodbye-gowalla\/","url_meta":{"origin":3004,"position":4},"title":"\u2605 Goodbye Gowalla","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"December 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"via Gowalla's Blog (which is inconveniently hosted on Tumblr which goes down often and could go away one day so much for data longevity and this blog even being around 1 year from now): Gowalla, as a service, will be winding down at the end of January. We plan to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Rants&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Rants","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/rants\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media.tumblr.com\/tumblr_lvlmbqecFS1qzo4wm.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8685,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2022\/03\/24\/twitter-nine-years-removed\/","url_meta":{"origin":3004,"position":5},"title":"Twitter, Nine Years Removed","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"March 24, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"How best to distill 6 years of prolific oversharing? March 21st, 2007: \"I'm using Twitter. Let's see how this goes.\" 77,950 Tweets later\u2026. July 2nd, 2013: \"I\u2019m on the verge of ceasing use of Twitter & Facebook.\" The time I spent on Twitter over the years wasn\u2019t a lot because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Social Media&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Social Media","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/social-media\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3004\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}