Is Angry Birds the new Solitaire or are we flying off the handle a bit too early?

TROUBLESOME pigs and killer birds cost $1.5bn in lost wages. But expert says game can actually improve productivity.

LOST productivity has been blamed on everything from Solitaire and changing computer passwords to insomnia and turning up sick when you should be resting in bed.

Now addictive smartphone game Angry Birds is the next alleged time waster to go under the microscope.

Those troublesome green pigs and their feathered assassins are reportedly costing businesses US$1.5 billion ($1.4 billion) in lost wages, according to recent research by US magazine The Atlantic.

Senior editor Alex Madrigal calculated that the estimated 108 million smartphone users in the US had clocked up more than 866 million hours of Angry Birds each year.

Even if 5 per cent of that time fell during working hours, it still amounted to more than 43 million hours of on-the-clock gaming every year.

Angry Birds

Click Gamer recorded 40 million monthly active Angry Birds users in July this year. Picture: iTunes

Madrigal based his methodology on Pew smartphone adoption data and studies that have been used to calculate how much money companies lose during basketball season, or from playing fantasy football.

He acknowledged that the calculation contained some pretty “big assumptions” but said his estimate was “right to the order of magnitude, if not in the details”.

Chairman of Advanced Human Technologies Ross Dawson told news.com.au today that workers already do a number of things that are not considered productive - like going to the bathroom or talking to colleagues without any actual loss in productivity.

“The fact someone is spending time playing a game or browsing doesn’t mean a productivity loss,” Mr Dawson said. “It’s only an issue if it becomes excessive.

“If we measured the productivity of someone who tried to work 60 minutes an hour versus 55 minutes an hour and spent five minutes playing Angry Birds, I suspect you wouldn’t see less work done by the person playing five minutes an hour.”

A study released last month confirms Mr Dawson’s theory, finding that contrary to popular myth, social networking can actually improve employee performance.

Tony Watt founder of corporate sociology firm Culture Doctor told news.com.au he suspected people who gamed at work were “actively disengaging”and were often inadvertently “sabotaging organisations to bring them down”.

“This whole corporate culture is very powerful and if business leaders do not pay attention, we’re going to be seeing more of those sorts of numbers, with very big zeros on the end of it,” Dr Watt said.