Ever get online just to check the weather and find yourself watching YouTube videos for two hours? Thank God somebody came up with a term for it:

Although a newly-identified habit, more than two-thirds of the 33.7 million internet users in the UK admit to at least the occasional “wilf” (a term derived from the phrase “what was I looking for?”), while browsing the internet.

The time-consuming practice appears to have destructive effects too: a third of males admitted that wilfing has a damaging effect on their relationship with a partner.

One in five confessed to being “distracted” from work or study by adult entertainment web sites, which often use pop-up mechanisms to coax users into transferring to their pages.

Wilfing on the Web, the new British pastime [Guardian Unlimited]