Breaks can help, IF your mindset is ok
I'm a systems administrator and I used to follow a very specific and personal regulation: during the Friday I would keep a window open where I was logged onto an IRC network. The whole day... Of course it also helped that I was logged onto my own server, which also functioned as the IRC server. So there was no risk what so ever that the company IP could leak out or get abused.
And it can definitely help you take your mind of things, but the most important part: the person who does this needs to be able to handle the distractions. All my friends in the #linux channel knew that Fridays, during the day, I could go AFK any second. Because obviously work comes first. And as long as you stick to that mindset then there's nothing wrong with spouting a few comments right after you set a new server to work on updates, or right after you fixed Ms. Jones permissions on the server so that she can work on her Word document again ("I'll promise not to click "protect" a next time").
But yeah: don't give me this educational nonsense. It's entertaining, it's relaxing, but it's not educational all the time. It can be, sure, I've also had good moments when I discussed Linux kernel settings with some friends, which suddenly gave me new ideas to optimize stuff for our company server.
Here's the thing: what works for me doesn't have to work for you. I also know plenty of people who'd get stuck in IRC all day long and wouldn't get any work done. So a company has to start somewhere, especially bigger ones.