Facebook fanatics in Italy

Italy is better known for its ancient monuments than for its modern digital networks. The country lies behind most of Western Europe in Internet usage, but Facebook has captivated Italians — maybe a little too much. Many Italians are networking on Facebook when they should be working on their jobs. From Rome, "The World" correspondnet Nancy Greenleese tells us that some employers are fighting back by banning Facebook from the office.

It’s a backlash over Italian workers who are wasting work time on Facebook — there’s even a number of groups on the site, translated, called "screwing around on Facebook at work." One of these groups has nearly 5,000 members.

The number of site visitors from Italy has skyrocketed since the Italian language version of Facebook launched this Spring. Italy ranks fifth in the world for the number of Facebook visits according to Google trends, trailing only far more computerized countries like the U.S. and the U.K.

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