Get a year in your life back

According to a survey by Ciao research and paid for by Lloyds TSB, the internet saves people five days every year.

The gist of the survey is that, of the 1000 or so web users surveyed nine out of ten said they were addicted to the internet and all said they saved time by doing chores online.

By chores they mean shopping, banking, booking tickets, arranging their holiday, finding phone-numbers and research.

I’m not sure how they actually got to the figure of five days every year saved by using the web to do every day things but to a certain extend it makes sense.

However there is another side that doesn’t make much sense – OK so you don’t have to sit waiting in a cue for half an hour to buy a £7.99 album, or stand around for six years waiting to see the bank cashier just to pay a bill.

BUT - you do have to find your way around the site, wait for the system to restart after a crash, login four times because the system logged you out while you got your wallet and then wait for the system to restart again – or maybe that’s just me?

Actually I can see why it saves time, the experience described above is a rare one, and normally I log on to internet banking, deal with what I need to and log off again without a problem.

Buying a CD or track from iTunes is as easy as clicking a button once it’s all set up and all my bills are paid by Direct Debit anyway.

I use the online version of the phone-book to find people (because of search), I use online encyclopaedias (because of search) and all my flights are booked online as well.

But what do you do with the extra five days you save each year – for me probably work or find more time to go on the computer – for my wife – probably go shopping (she’ll shop online and then go and shop in town as well).

In the survey 67% of people lie and say they spend the extra time with their families, 59% say they use the time to relax and for some reason 21% (over 200 people) say they exercise!

Then there is the 13%, the ones I like the most, the ones who obviously don’t have children who say they spend the time catching up on sleep – lucky bastards.

Finally just 16% say they spend the time at work – to be honest though most of the activities that saved you time in the first place where probably done at work anyway – so this isn’t much of a surprise.

The press release sent out about this survey says that “many people assume that the internet has had a detrimental affect on family life and relationships but in fact the opposite is true in many situations.”

Apparently “doing everyday chores online can give people extra time on their hands and the fact that people prefer to invest this time in their family or in their own personal health by exercising or relaxing is a very positive trend”.

Then as you get further down the press release you can see why it was paid for by Lloyds TSB – apparently 9 out of 10 people expected an instant decision when applying for a product or service online.

With this in mind, and giving it a big plug at the end, Lloyds TSB have launched a service called QuickSign that apparently allows customers applying for loans to get an instant decision and access to money if they’re approved.

The interesting bit is that it is open to Lloyds TSB customers who use internet banking by accepting their internet banking password as an electronic signature and then transferring the money to their account instantly if approved.

This follows Barclays announcing that they will be giving Internet Banking customers free anti-virus software as part of their account – which is nice.

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