I don't use my work network for banking, no, because IT monitor and proxy everything and I don't trust the IT dept. Mostly for personal stuff I use my iPhone. Not really any need to use a work computer for that. I don't read "sleazy blogs" at work, in fact I'm not even sure what you mean. If you mean porn, then ewww, no. If you mean things like techcrunch, theverge or hn (which aren't sleazy) then sure, I read those, but i don't need privacy for that.
if I did use the work computer for personal email, It's not like people are sitting on top of each other and 12pt fonts can be read.
This seems to me like kids and their sense of entitlement. Goof off if you want, all you want, but don't expect the company to provide you with privacy just so you don't have to feel bad about it.
Well whenever you take a break from coding you would know that everyone around you knows you are not working. This can be needlessly stressful and would probably lead to people overworking themselves and burning out.
no no, it's not an issue of people actually caring how much you work. I agree that people aren't going to call you out or tell you to work more. It's more of a self-consciousness about taking breaks. People are much harder on themselves than they should be. We try to project an image that we are hardworking and that we don't waste any time at work.
If people were always looking over my shoulder I wouldn't be comfortable having HN open in a window/screen for half the day