"An astonishing amount of time is being wasted on investigating the amount of time being wasted on social networks," says The Economist in a special report that spends 20 pages proving the point.

Like the topic, the report covers a lot of ground and is less interesting for any coherent conclusion than for the range of commentary it encompasses, and some surprising facts. Ok, Facebook with 350 million users would be the world's third largest country, if it were a country. We knew that. But I liked the note that "Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet was greeted with much skepticism because managers assumed workers would use it to make lists of their fantasy football teams or their weekend shopping - which is exactly what they did and still do. But along the way, Excel has become an invaluable business tool."