Jesus Christ! I've had it up to here with these bullshit stories that keep appearing over alleged "lost productivity" in the office space due to some inane reason. Case in point: Newsweek's story, "March Madness: Bad for Business," in which they claim that streaming webcasts of the game cost businesses in the US $1.7 billion dollars. This story is one of hundreds out there that lazily try to link some distraction in the workplace to billions of dollars of potential work-tim.

Please! It's got to be the most bullshit kind of social science I've ever seen. This is what lazy social science does. It doesn't actually prove -- or even attempt to prove -- a cause and effect relationship. It merely assumes the relationship between the two.

Newsweek briefly acknowledges these gross shortcomings in the story, but the article's subhead says it all: "America's B-ball obsession costs $1.7B in lost productivity." Um. You can't say that, Newsweek:

According to Cobb, March Madness distractions could cost American companies about $1.7 billion in lost productivity. "It's certainly going to impact ability the concentrate," he says. Cobb is the first to admit the figure is not the most scientific; its based on the estimated number of workers expected to participate in pools, the money they earn and estimates 10 minutes wasted each day on March Madness-related activities. That 10-minute figure is largely a guess, Cobb says. And its also unclear whether those 10 March Madness wasted minutes would have actually been spent working diligently or, say, playing Scrabble online - workers could just be substituting one time wasting activity with another.

Pathetic! This is what bad social science looks like. Rick Cobb should be fired. Sarah Kliff (author of the story) should be fired. It's not just lazy, it's horribly inaccurate and misleading. Ugh!