As loath as I am to admit it, I am a procrastinator. As a young child I got hungry when it was time to pick up my toys. As an elementary school kid I would play outside when it was time for homework to be done, because exercise is important. Now though, I procrastinate in a whole new way: with the internet. While I am not a member of Facebook or MySpace I still find plenty of places to burn daylight and occasionally the midnight oil.
I have come to believe that YouTube is a secret vortex where time speeds along twice as fast as usual. It’s worth it though. I can not describe how watching cats chase laser pointers or children sing show tunes for three minute intervals has enhanced my life. Where would I be without the wonders of “Double Rainbow” or “Charlie Bit Me”? That’s right, my grade point average would be higher, because I would have spent the time learning to conjugate Spanish verbs, but no one talks about that at the water cooler.
Another favorite of mine is howstuffworks.com. This site has come in handy countless times for research projects and English essays. It has also educated me on such topics as boogers, police interrogations, and Euchre. The most distressing thing about this site is that when looking up an article for a project, a link to something more interesting invariably will appear on a sidebar. How am I supposed to focus on the Electoral College when there is a link that leads to a page on the amenities of Air Force One? I learned something about Super Delegates and that I want a plane.
Last FM is a sight similar in nature to Pandora and other internet radio stations. I have nothing against it except for the fact that the technology used to run it is way too tempting for me. I listen to this site when I am doing other things and most of the time it is fine. Then, there are the times when I notice music recommendations. “If you like Jack Johnson and Zach Gill you will probably like Animal Liberation Orchestra.” I worry that if I don’t look up Animal Liberation Orchestra right away I may miss the best band of all time. I will go my entire life without understanding why that band has such a strange name. It isn’t enough to just add them to a play list either. I have to open another tab so that I can listen to them on YouTube immediately, which opens another can of worms.
If specific websites aren’t enough there is always Google. I can type in any question I have ever had and get an answer in seconds. I have so many questions. What are the names of the kids from The Sound of Music? Who sings that song from the cake mix commercial? Why do people get brain freezes? How do you drive a stick shift? I have yet to be given an assignment for school or work that had anything to do with any of this but I need to know. NOW.
I’ve made peace with this. I realize that I would still go on a quest for these elusive and vital questions even without the internet. I would have to spend days in a library with dozens of encyclopedias to find them instead of .7 seconds with a search engine. I think short of swearing off the internet for good, the best solution would be to learn to speed read so I can process the answers more quickly and get back to less interesting topics than what movie won the Best Picture Oscar the year I was born (It was Forest Gump).