Freakonomics in Food Court

Right now I am reading a book called "Freakonomics". I am sure you guys must have read it or would have atleast heard about it. If not then I'd strongly suggest you to grab a copy and go through it.

Now that the advertisement is over, lets concentrate on the post. I along with my team go to the food court of our office at around 2 pm for lunch. The reason being the food court is generally less crowded at that time. However, for the last month or so, the food court seems to be getting more and more crowded at that time. Initially, I thought the other people had got as smart as our team, however when the crowd kept growing and growing I started to look at other possible reasons for this population explosion in the food court. Thats where "Freakonomics" came into picture.

As a part of cost cutting, the internet access in our office was limited to 1 hr a day (1 pm - 2 pm). The reason given was people spend productive time browsing the net. This really angered the people at the time, however as is the case nobody really complained fearing backlash in the time of recession. What happened instead was people started using internet religiously in the allotted hour. Earlier we used internet when we needed it, whereas the restriction pushed people into creating a need for internet. The result, everyone could be found using the internet and hence no one was there in the food court.

Though I do not have the data to prove my point, I have a feeling that the man hour lost due to internet has gone up after the restriction......

Its funny how seemingly unrelated events are connected. Thats the theme of Freakonomics for you.