Cyberloafing

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What Does Cyberloafing Mean?

Cyberloafing is a term used to describe the actions of employees who use their Internet access at work for personal use while pretending to do legitimate work. Cyberloafing is derived from the term goldbricking, which originally referred to applying gold coating to a brick of worthless metal. Today, both goldbricking and cyberloafing (along with cyberslacking and cyberbludging) are used to refer to this phenomenon. For companies that employ cyberloafers, this behavior leads to inefficiency.

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Techopedia Explains Cyberloafing

Every year, cyberloafing can cost employers a great deal of money in lost productivity. To counter this practice, surveillance software is sometimes used to monitor employees’ online activities. Another strategy is to install proxy servers to prevent access to sites and services such as AOL Instant Messenger, Internet Relay Chat, or Internet gambling. Disciplinary measures and subsidized online access after business hours have also been used to decrease incidences of cyberloafing.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist
Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.