Consumer Report: The Best Ways to Waste Time Online

As the end of the year looms ahead, I hope I am not the only student beginning to feel a combination of spring fever, a case of the Mondays and an urgent desire to graduate. It’s times like these that I find myself wasting a lot of time doing anything other than what I should be. How is one able to waste so much time, you ask? The internet is what makes it possible, my friend. Here are my picks for ways to waste time online.

Looking for jobs you aren’t qualified for.

This one goes out to the seniors, the downtrodden who are lost in a Monster.com world of job listings they aren’t prepared to do. I have spent hours at a time sifting through jobs that seek someone roughly 20 years older than myself, with about a hundred years worth of experience. What, can’t I be the Senior Public Relations Executive at a PR firm in Pennsylvania? Or an Editor for AOL, Inc. in Chicago? Or the next Beyonce? A girl can dream.

Somehow, every time I start looking for jobs, I get sidetracked looking at jobs that I am entirely too inexperienced for. It’s a real self-esteem booster. If you have a few extra hours of your life to spare and you don’t want to do your homework, “job-hunting” is a fantastic way to waste that time.

Reading your favorite blogger’s entire archive.

Reading blogs is great because there is literally something out there for everyone. If you want to read about fly fishing, http://www.flyfish.com is there for you. If you want to know more about one-sided celebrity gossip, http://www.perezhilton.com has you covered.

I like to read a few different blogs, but one of my most recent favorites is called 11Points. I fell in love when I read the post titled “11 Stupid Questions From Yahoo Answers That Have Changed My Life,” and I have been an avid reader ever since. There is this fabulous feature at the bottom of each article that offers links to related lists on the Web site. The genius even has a list called “11 Blogs I Can’t Stop Visiting.” My blog reading time has severely increased (and coincidentally, my productivity has severely decreased) since I discovered 11Points, Texts From Last Night and Passive-Aggressive Notes.

Watching YouTube videos your friends suggest.

Everyone has been there before. Someone posts a video on Facebook and you start by just watching “AutoTune - Charlie Bit Me.” Then you see the related videos listed on the side. You don’t want to do it, but your mouse clicks just one. And then another. And before you know it, you’ve wasted several hours watching videos and somehow you’ve ended up watching a video about funny puppies.

I like to believe that discovering new YouTube videos is really an art. Once someone gets hold of a funny video, it spreads like wildfire. It is also easy to waste time watching music videos on YouTube’s new partner, Vevo. If you’re not careful, though, you could end up starting with Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” and ending up on “When the Lights Go Out” by 5ive. It’s been known to happen.