Hate waiting for websites to load? You're not alone

Online banks and retailers, call centre operators - anyone who does business online or on the phone - should be careful how long they make customers wait because the UK population has grown more impatient.

Broadband is partly to blame, as it's had the unintended consequence of making its users more impatient in the rest of their life.

One in three people say they're more impatient since getting a high-speed net connection, according to research commissioned by telecom company Cable & Wireless.

Overall, 38 per cent of the 1,000 people surveyed say they've become more impatient over the past five years, whether or not they have broadband.

The magic number is three minutes - that's how long businesses have before a third of customers will stop waiting online or on the phone. They're a bit more patient at high street shops, where a third of people will queue for five minutes before leaving.

The old stereotype of men being less patient than women holds up in the research. When shopping or banking online, women are about three times more likely than men to wait more than a minute for a page to load.

Women, however, are becoming impatient at a faster rate than men. Two in five women - compared to one in three men - said they're more impatient than five years ago.