The Cyber-Suck

I’m just going to check one little thing. Real quick. Just pop over to the website, see if so-and-so posted that article she promised, then it’s straight to work.

Yeah, right.

Next thing I know, DG comes in to tell me he’s tired of waiting on me and is going to bed. Ack. Two hours gone and what do I have to show for it? A tired wrist from mouse usage and knowledge I didn’t need on the conspiracy theories regarding the judging on So You Think You Can Dance. How in dog’s name did I end up there?

Don’t I know that the internet is nothing but a giant time-suck for me? One click leads to another, and to another, and soon enough I’m lost in cyberspace.

I’m either going to have to develop willpower (yeah, right) or else DG will have to disconnect my internet access before he leaves for work in the morning. My email addiction is bad enough—now I’m haunting sites for no good reason. I can’t even claim it’s “research.”

A few dangerous sites for me:

Etiquette Hell—Where the terminally tacky and unbelievably rude burn forever. The site owner just updated with new stories. With 34 categories and 10+ new stories per category… well, you can imagine the time I can waste there. And should I mention there are archives going back to the late 90s? It’s like a train wreck—you can’t help reading on. And if that’s not bad enough, there’s a forum going 24/7 to rant about the tackiness in life between updates on the main site.

Fark.com—Not quite a news site, but you’ll certainly get the news you might miss otherwise. Dedicated readers submit links to the interesting and unusual happenings in the world. Clicking though the links is time-killing enough—don’t wander into the comments section or you’ll never get out.

Statcounter.com—Yes, that nifty little button PM added to the sidebar is a time-suck for me. I can obsess endlessly over where our blog visitors are coming from, what terms they put into Google that led them to us, how long they stayed on the site…

Snopes.com—This is the site where you come when you need to know if that story about the guy who had his kidneys stolen in New Orleans is true or not. No urban legend is safe here. I can usually limit myself to the “What’s New” page, because I’ve spent so much time on this site over the years, I think I’ve worked my way though most of the archives already.

Oh, and of course there’s the daily visits that have to be made. Blogs I have to visit (and comment, and then check back to see if anyone has commented on my comment). The site where I can check my horoscope, my numerology report, my Chinese sign forecast, and my tarot reading of the day. My obsessive visits to our blog can’t be ignored either.

I’ve set myself some serious goals that have to be met once AC starts back to school. Limiting my time on-line will be one of them (and will have to be done if I'm going to make any of the other goals.). I can’t go cold turkey, but I’m going to have to cut waaaaaay back. You’ll know if it’s working cause I’ll be the one over in the corner twitching slightly from the withdrawal.

So what sites are major time sucks for you? Which ones just seem to draw you in for hours without you realizing it. Please DON'T give me the URL—I don’t need to be spending more time on the internet—just describe what kind of site it is and why it sucks you in.

I’ll give away a copy of Joanne Rock’s Hidden Obsession to one commenter—let you kill some time the old fashioned way!

PC