While the UK video games industry may have grown to almost £1bn in 2012, there are concerns that the emerging mobile gaming sector could be costing the economy over a third of that in lost working hours. According to a
recent survey by Fortune Frenzy, 53% of the British workforce admitted to spending time during the working day playing games on their mobile phone. The 2,000 respondents to the survey spent an average of one hour a week playing games, costing the economy a claimed £355m.
"The British workforce has always been partial to a good skive. With the wealth of different games and apps available it unfortunately naturally follows that people are whiling away the minutes by playing games on their mobile during working hours."
While the claims are clearly exagerated, and the respondent demographic unclear, it will come as no surprise to many that mobile phone use in the workplace is on the rise. In a 2005 YouGov survey, it was identified that 80% of workers would consider sending or receiving an SMS message while at work wholly unacceptable, but today the amount of people who avoid any use of their mobile at work stands at just 9%. Perhaps most alarming of all, 65% owned up to using their mobile device whilst on the toilet. Quite what impact this will have on the sale of second-hand mobile phones remains to be seen.