Aimless workers 'wilfing' the web

It is the virtual equivalent of window-shopping, and a lot of Brits seem to be spending a lot of time doing it. "Wilfing" or surfing the web without any real purpose has become a new national pastime, according to a new survey.

Although a newly identified habit, more than two-thirds of the 33.7 million Internet users in the UK admit to at least the occasional 'wilf' (a term derived from the phrase 'what was I looking for?'), while browsing the Internet.

The lure of pop-up sites and flashing online adverts is, it seems, too appealing to resist for many Internet users. Almost a quarter of those surveyed said they spent 30 percent or more of their Internet time wilfing calculated as the equivalent of spending an entire working day every fortnight pointlessly jumping between random pages.