Busy doing nothing? Timewaster's guide to the net

If your boss has banned Facebook and eBay, Sophie Morris can suggest some other diversions. So hurry up, there's time to be wasted!

Four million users; 233 million working hours; £132m a day; £30.8bn a year. These figures, according to researchers, are the true costs of Facebook for employers. The Facebook phenomenon has been gathering momentum all summer. Never far behind, though, has been the refrain of killjoy employers, complaining that the hours spent on Facebook are affecting productivity.

Since May, when Facebook opened up its site to games and applications from outside developers, the number of users in London has doubled to more than 800,000 – the biggest city network in the world. Instead of just using the site to expand their social circle, many users are now addicted to playing Scrabulous and other time-draining games on the office clock.

Now, bosses are fighting back. Last week, three council workers in Neath Port Talbot, south Wales, lost their jobs because they were spending too long online. Many more employers are taking the less hard-line stance, choosing instead to block staff from accessing sites such as Facebook at work. New figures suggest that 70 per cent of London companies, led by top City firms, have banned workers from Facebooking while in the office.

Tesco and Transport for London are among the firms that have blocked the site. The law firm Allen & Overy blocked the site earlier this year, before making a shamefaced about-turn when they were flooded with complaints from graduate trainees who were missing their afternoon (virtual) hugs and "pokes" (used by Facebook users to get others' attention). The firm reinstated access, saying the site was a useful tool for "business networking".

If you've been blocked from your favourite site by a mean-spirited employer, you might find something to scratch that Facebook itch on our list of alternative time-wasting websites.

Scrabulous

The hottest Facebook application of the summer. You don't need to be logged on to Facebook to play, and if you get sick of waiting for your friends in the States to wake up and make their next move, you can play against robots instead.

www.scrabulous.com

Falling Sand Game

Who would have thought dragging virtual flammable substances over columns of sand could be so satisfying? We recommend Pyro Sand, which gives you access to napalm, nitro, fire and gunpowder. Not for children or aspiring pyromaniacs.

www.fallingsandgame.com

Wallet Test

If you can't get on Facebook at work, you may be blocked from YouTube as well. The creator of this site – clearly a professional time-waster – dropped his wallet on the pavement and filmed the results, times 100.

www.wallettest.com

Boomshine

Highly addictive hand-eye coordination game. Coloured dots float around a dark screen, which you chase with your mouse, trying to explode them and start a chain reaction. Not advisable for people who get dizzy easily.

www.bored.com/boomshine

Pets in Clothes

Is this cruel? It's so much fun, it might be. You can rate the cats, dogs and the odd guinea pig dressed up in capes and biker gear before e-mailing them to your friends The spin-off of Pets in Clothes, of course, is dressing up your own pet for the site.

www.petsinclothes.com

Free texts

If you're stuck for ways to contact your friends without access to the 'book, can we recommend going retro and sending a text? Invented in the 1990s, they're easy to master and can be sent for free from the O2 website, even if you are not one of their customers.

www.02.co.uk

Graffiti

Most Facebook users are too busy adding new applications to perfect their use of the graffiti tool. Diehard fans go to this site instead, where there are works of art and labours of love. Doodle the afternoon away while pretending to close that huge deal.

www.mydrawings.com

Rather Good

If you've grown tired of the set-piece babes'*'bling music videos that dominate MTV, check out Alex and Joel Veitch's bonkers collection of tunes. Amusingly juvenile lyrics are set to cut-and-paste animals dancing and playing the guitar.

www.rathergood.com

The Museum of Bad Album Covers

Most of the offenders here hail from the Seventies and Eighties, and there are some cheap shots at the Germans. Amazingly, Manowar (above), are a serious band, not a Chippendales rip-off as this cover suggests.

www.zonicweb.net/badalbmcvrs/index.htm

Patently Silly

This site covers the strangest patents ever issued in the US, so, before you protect your idea, you can check out who has beaten you to it. The cucumber sandwich has gone, unfortunately, so high tea is out, as has the "homunculus made from common rubber bands".

www.patentlysilly.com

Japander

Many big stars who manage their image in Europe and the US very carefully are happy to sell out for big money in Asia. The best clips on this site (selected from YouTube) are of the Beckhams promoting unglamorous products like control knickers, and giving beauty tips.

www.japander.com

Mini pool

If you can't access Facebook at work, no doubt you don't work in one of those groovy creative offices with a pool table in the corner. Play mini pool online instead, and you can make believe you're in the pub when it's tea-round time.

www.fetchfido.co.uk/games/
minipool/minipool.htm

Predict your death

Is work really that bad without being able to spend all day on Facebook? Work out how long you have left to live on Death Forecast – and then whack a lawsuit on your boss for shortening your life span by denying you access to your favourite website.

www.deathforecast.com

Adopt a pet

It's cruel to keep a large dog in a small flat, and children are really, really expensive. If you adopt a virtual pet online you can bring it to work with you and there's no need to worry about it peeing on the floor. Tamagotchis for the online generation.

www.adoptme.com

Hug someone

For those who can't make it through a full working day without pokes (the fabulously useless way to prod people in Facebook), or indeed, for anyone needing a little TLC. You can even send hugs to your loved ones via this site.

www.onlinehugs.com

Bubble wrap

Not quite as satisfying as popping huge sheets of the real stuff, but the beauty of this time-waster is that it requires no skill or powers of concentration. If you're having one of those days, you'll still be capable of popping online bubble wrap.

www.snapbubbles.com

Disco George

This dancing George Bush is quite lo-tech and hardly original, but quite amusing all the same. Put him on the dance floor surrounded by disco lights and watch Dubya do the splits and practise his Saturday Night Fever moves.

www.dancingbush.com

Rock, paper, scissors

On the off-chance that your colleagues are too busy to play juvenile games, this should kill some time. You can play against a selection of big Hollywood players in their action-hero garb, including Gladiator, Indiana Jones and the Terminator.

www.playrps.com

Price Game

We've come a long way since guessing how much the ironing board is worth on The Price is Right. This game is in dollars, and trying to work out the price of memory sticks and baby wipes, while not exactly mind-blowing, beats filling out spreadsheets.

www.bored.com/pricegame

Fortune Cookie

The online fortune-cookie baker spews out such pearls as: "The more seeds you sow, the more flowers will bloom." Cynics might be amused to find the lyrics: "Happiness is just an illusion/ filled with sadness and confusion" inside one.

www.myfortunecookie.co.uk