Many people used the internet to do their Christmas shopping in company time - and women were the worst culprits.

Instead of sneaking out for an extra-long lunch to get the festive shopping, 28 per cent of the 500 internet users questioned shopped online from the office, according to just-sites.com the business news and information web site.

About 35 per cent of women did their festive shopping at work while the figure for men was 24 per cent.

Music, videos and books were the top purchases but 78 per cent of shoppers said they would not be buying gifts online in the future, according to the survey.

About 34 per cent said they used the internet to research gifts beforebuying the same items on the High Street.

Another survey found that women took almost two hours to buy a computer while men took just 35 minutes in the Christmas sales, according PC World, the computer superstore.

About 53 per cent of households currently have a computer and over the coming year many are expected to invest in a second computer asparents and children battle it out for screen time.