Absolutely and if keeping up with technology is not work then what it is "work"? Is it just typing out the code? What about when your IDE auto-completes your code? It's a little silly to think about it this way.

I try to keep my distractions to a minimum level but I've often encountered comments and articles on HN that have been of great benefit to my work and my clients. Things like a service I've never heard of, a library being used in a way that I haven't seen before or even just personal experiences.

Hell I even use HN to minimize distractions such as reading only the comments section about some new product Google/MS/Apple released(or is killing) just to get an idea of what's out there in the market and if it is of any use to me.