As a smoker, I'm only mildly surprised at the 23 minutes. While it does seem unusually long, my experience at least confirms that probably easily half of my smo

As a smoker, I'm only mildly surprised at the 23 minutes. While it does seem unusually long, my experience at least confirms that probably easily half of my smoke breaks turn into a meeting of sorts (which can last a while!), or something else that is not work but work-ish enough that it doesn't seem to cause issues. 153 minutes is probably more than reality, but even a full hour a day would only be mildly surprising in some of the environments I've experienced (so I might be entirely off-base for the US). In fact, some of my non-smoking colleagues started participating in the 'smoke breaks' (alongside the 'hanging-around-in-the-coffee-area' breaks) not just because those breaks can be problem solvers, but because it would lead to important informal 'meetings'. Personally I hate this. I wish we had fewer self-harming 'down-time' moments at work (whether cigarette breaks or after-work inebriation) and more of the positive kind (meetup/lightning-talk-but-of-course-with-beers-for-those-who-care, long big-meal lunches as part of company culture, etc.), because I'm convinced they're crucial to the health of the company (cross-pollination of ideas/concerns between departments, for example).