Only 6% of at-work surfers who wind up at adult sites say it was intentional, a new Harris Interactive survey says.

Gregg Keizer, Contributor

May 16, 2006

1 Min Read

One in six men confessed that they've surfed porn while using the Internet at work, but only a fraction of them -- 6 percent -- admitted that they'd intentionally ended up at a smut site, says a poll released Tuesday.

The survey, done by Harris Interactive for San Diego, Calif.-based security company Websense, found that 16 percent of men and 8 percent of women who access the Web from work said that they'd viewed pornographic sites on company time. However, an overwhelming number of those people -- 94 percent of men, 95 percent of women -- denied that they'd made it to XXX sites on purpose.

Websense's poll uncovered relatively few other believe-it-or-not facts; many of the other results, in fact, fit stereotypes. More men, for instance, visited sports and investment sites during work time than did women (42 and 39 percent of men, respectively, versus 18 and 20 percent of women), while women were more likely to end up at travel and shopping sites than were men (60 and 53 percent versus 52 and 43 percent).

And in a variation of the men-never-ask-for-directions joke, the survey said women were more than twice as likely to call the IT department for help if their computer was infected by spyware than were men (64 versus 30 percent).

On average, men acknowledged blowing 2.3 hours a week on surfing to non work-related Web sites, while women owned up to just 1.5 hours each week.

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