Not that I Encourage Goofing Off

The NY Times has an interesting article today about the online video primetime, aka "lunch". Apparently and unsurprisingly, online video sites measure huge spikes between noon and three in the afternoon as people eat at their desks and tune in for online videos. I have two thoughts on this.

First, people should get up from their desks and go running or something. Get a little fresh air, people, it won't kill you. Of course, as one person noted, eating at your desk can help to keep your flow going, but I don't imagine this is actually true if you're interrupting your work to watch a confused young man defend Britney Spears' honor or whatnot.

Second, concerns about productivity are probably unfounded. Who's worried? This guy:

“Based on the traffic I’m seeing,” said Miguel Monteverde, executive director of AOL Video, “our nation’s productivity is in question.”

Well, I guess if you expect folks to give you their lunch time too, maybe there might could be a problem. But in general people should goof off a little bit at lunch, don't you think? Or maybe Mr. Monteverde is seeing other traffic patterns not reported in the article -- like maybe we're watching video all the live-long-day, and scamming our employers out of bandwidth whilst not producing their product.

Whatever. I love this idea of the synchronous and asynchronous coming together -- even though all the content (in general) is sitting out there for consumption any time you wish, in practice people still seem to want to come together around the gentle glow of the radio and listen to Little Orphan Annie at the same time. It's sweet, really.