A new study says Australian employers are expected to lose as much as $4 billion due to declining productivity because their employees log on to Facebook at work, reports Red Herring.

I'm always slightly dubious of such studies. In this case, the sponsor is SurfControl, a maker of products to track employees' surfing habits. So: Hmmm.

I also wonder how these things are worked out. Obviously, cubicle dwellers are spending more and more time on Facebook (heck, I am), reflected in Hitwise stats showing it's now on the list of Australia's Top 20 most-visited sites. And in NZ Facebook traffic grew by 238% growth between April 14 and June 30, says Hitwise. But are 100,000 Kiwis suddenly neglecting their in-trays in favour of writing on Facebook Superwalls ... or is it just eating into their TradeMe time? Now that would be really serious for our economy.

Facebook grows up
Speaking of our favourite soc-net site, there's an interesting stat in this week's Time magazine: Facebook may have started on a university campus, but its average user age has headed steadily north. Today, 39% of Facebook members are over 35.

Not great news for our local heroes at iYomu.