The Best Ways to Waste Time on the Internet

Last Updated on May 29, 2024 by Michael

Ladies and gentlemen, gather ’round, for I am about to impart upon you the sacred knowledge of the most unproductive, time-sucking, and utterly hilarious ways to waste your precious hours on the internet. In a world where productivity is king, we must stand united in our quest to procrastinate, dawdle, and fritter away our days in the most entertaining ways possible.

The Rabbit Hole of Wikipedia

Ah, Wikipedia – the virtual equivalent of falling down a rabbit hole lined with fascinating facts, obscure trivia, and questionable citations. Start by innocently searching for information on your favorite celebrity, and before you know it, you’re 47 pages deep into the mating habits of the Peruvian dung beetle.

• Click on every blue link you see, no matter how unrelated it may seem. Who knows what hidden gems await you?
• Get lost in the “Personal Life” section of every minor celebrity’s page. You never know when you might need to know their second cousin’s favorite color.
• Play “Six Degrees of Wikipedia” – start on a random page and see how many clicks it takes you to get to “Kevin Bacon.”

The Infinite Scroll of Social Media

Social media: the ultimate time-suck. From Facebook to Instagram to Twitter, these platforms are designed to keep you scrolling, tapping, and liking until your eyes glaze over and your thumbs go numb.

1. Stalk your ex’s new partner’s best friend’s cousin’s dog groomer on Instagram. They might have posted a picture of your ex’s elbow in the background of a group shot from 2015.
2. Engage in a heated political debate with a stranger on Facebook. Bonus points if you end up arguing about a completely unrelated topic, like pineapple on pizza.
3. Create a Twitter thread detailing your Top 100 Favorite Llama Memes of All Time. Your followers need this information.

The Questionable Quests of Online Quizzes

Online quizzes are the junk food of the internet – they’re addictive, not particularly good for you, and you always end up consuming way more than you intended. But hey, how else are you supposed to find out which combination of a Disney princess, a type of bread, and a 90s boyband member you are?

• Take every “Which Character Are You?” quiz for your favorite TV shows. It’s important to know if you’re more of a Dwight Schrute or a Michael Scott.
• Complete a series of increasingly specific personality quizzes until you’ve narrowed down your identity to something like “Chaotic Good Hufflepuff Aries who prefers dogs over cats and pizza over tacos.”
• Create your own absurd quiz and share it with your friends. “Which Type of Kitchen Appliance Are You Based on Your Favorite Childhood Memory?” is sure to be a hit.

The Black Hole of YouTube

Forget time-wasting; YouTube is a time-devouring, procrastination-enabling, video-bingeing black hole from which there is no escape. One minute you’re watching a tutorial on how to fold a fitted sheet, and the next thing you know, you’re three hours deep into a conspiracy theory about the moon landing being faked by a cabal of lizard people.

Some of the most addictive YouTube rabbit holes include:

• Unboxing videos: Watch strangers slowly and methodically remove products from their packaging. Thrilling.
• Fail compilations: Nothing soothes the soul quite like watching people face-plant off of trampolines or fall victim to ill-fated pranks.
• Cute animal videos: Because who doesn’t want to spend hours cooing over videos of kittens falling asleep or puppies learning to howl?

The Procrasti-Nation of Online Shopping

Online shopping: it’s like regular shopping, but with the added bonus of being able to do it in your pajamas while avoiding all human interaction. Plus, the rush of dopamine you get from clicking “Add to Cart” is almost as satisfying as the rush of panic you feel when you realize you’ve spent your entire paycheck on novelty socks and inflatable dinosaur costumes.

• Fill your cart with items you have no intention of buying, just to feel like you’ve accomplished something.
• Read product reviews for hours, marveling at the passion with which people can argue about the merits of different spatula brands.
• Create elaborate wishlists for every hypothetical scenario imaginable, from “Dream Beach Vacation” to “Zombie Apocalypse Survival Gear.”

The Pun-derful World of Memes

Memes: the lingua franca of the internet. These bite-sized bits of humor, often accompanied by a picture of a disgruntled cat or a crying Michael Jordan, have the power to unite people across all walks of life in a shared sense of amusement and existential dread.

• Spend hours scrolling through meme pages, chuckling to yourself and occasionally snorting coffee out of your nose.
• Create your own memes using inside jokes that only you and your closest friends will understand.
• Send memes to your parents and grandparents, then spend even more time trying to explain why they’re funny.

The Procrastibaking Playground of Online Recipes

Why be productive when you could be procrastibaking? With the endless array of online recipes at your fingertips, you can spend hours drooling over pictures of perfectly styled baked goods and convincing yourself that you, too, can create a masterpiece worthy of a spot on “The Great British Baking Show.”

• Save hundreds of recipes to your “Recipes to Try” Pinterest board, knowing full well that you’ll never actually make any of them.
• Read the comment section of every recipe, marveling at the sheer audacity of people who leave one-star reviews because they substituted all the ingredients and didn’t follow any of the instructions.
• Attempt a recipe that’s way beyond your skill level, then spend the rest of the day cleaning up the aftermath and consoling yourself with store-bought cookies.

The Clickbait Conundrum

Clickbait: it’s the siren song of the internet, luring you in with promises of shocking revelations, unbelievable transformations, and life-changing secrets. You know you shouldn’t click, but resistance is futile.

Some classics include:

1. “You Won’t Believe What This Celebrity Looks Like Now!” (Spoiler alert: they look older)
2. “This One Weird Trick Will Change Your Life Forever!” (Spoiler alert: it won’t)
3. “What Happens Next Will Shock You!” (Spoiler alert: it probably won’t)

The Glorious Graveyard of Abandoned Tabs

You know that feeling when you have so many tabs open that you can’t even read what they are anymore? Welcome to the Glorious Graveyard of Abandoned Tabs, where good intentions go to die.

• Open a new tab for every interesting article, video, or meme you come across, promising yourself you’ll get to it eventually.
• Experience a sense of existential dread as you watch the number of open tabs climb into the double, then triple digits.
• Finally admit defeat and close all the tabs without reading any of them, vowing to be more selective next time (spoiler alert: you won’t be).

Conclusion

And there you have it, folks – the best ways to waste time on the internet, brought to you by someone who has spent more hours than they care to admit perfecting the art of procrastination. So the next time you find yourself with a few spare minutes (or hours, or days), don’t feel guilty about diving headfirst into the wonderfully weird, wildly entertaining world of internet time-wasting.

After all, life’s too short to spend all your time being productive. Sometimes, you just need to sit back, relax, and watch a compilation video of cats jumping into cardboard boxes. Trust me; your brain will thank you.