I can't believe that it takes dedicated research and insight to determine that this is a problem. It's not caused by e-mail and instant messaging, it's caused b

I can't believe that it takes dedicated research and insight to determine that this is a problem. It's not caused by e-mail and instant messaging, it's caused by undisciplined workers. Today's work environment is catering to this culture - the wages in an average office job assume that you waste at least 30% of your time and do a halfway unfocused job the rest of the time. Anyone who has ever worked or studied has seen this problem first-hand. I doubt it started with computers..you can find all kinds of ways to put off hard work if you want to. Smoking breaks, talking to co-workers, just pretending to be working etc. In college, half the students put off reading until the last week before the final exam and complain that studying is so hard. I'd go so far as to say that this just as big a problem for ambitious employees as it is for the economy at large. I am fully capable of being focused at least 80% of the time, but that doesn't mean that I'll get paid 20-30% more. In a big company, I have no motivation to do a good job. The system embraces mediocrity. This is less of a problem in small companies where every employee is a partner. In these companies, wages are sometimes considerably greater (there are 10-man consulting companies in Norway where wages of $200,000 including stock are close to the median). And none of this, of course, applies to a startup. It's just a pain that these kinds of gigs require disproportionally more effort than a regular office job. There should be a middle ground somewhere.