Office work is a pain in the neck

"Office workers risk health problems as communications technology makes them slaves to their desks.

So says research from cordless communications outfit, GN Netcom, which found that a third of workers are tied to their desks for more than seven hours a day."

Two thirds of those quizzed blamed health problems on being chained to their desk, with half claiming they suffer from stress and four in ten complaining of neck and shoulder ache.

The research also found that email now takes up almost as much time as telephone calls for the majority of the UK's office workers.

Six in ten people spend more than an hour per day on emails with a third spending up to three hours a day ploughing through their inbox.