Vices: Trip into stumbleupon.com
I dare you to resist reading an article titled "The World's Most Dangerous Airports." If the title doesn't grab you, the pictures of commuter planes inches from disaster should. Or how about catching up on the latest viral videos? Already seen "Surprised Kitty"? Just click the "Stumble!" button again.
Stumbleupon.com is the best way to find things you didn't even know you were looking for. The Web sites that surface with the click of a button are the results of things you wouldn't guess to Google and videos you would've never thought to YouTube. It gives an infinite stream of time-consuming Web sites that take the place of repeatedly checking e-mail, logging onto Facebook or constantly refreshing Twitter.
I can spend hours stumbling from one Web site to another, absorbing useless, but interesting facts, finding crazy YouTube videos and playing pointless games. For me, stumbleupon.com has opened a new door to procrastinating. Its simple, downloadable toolbar sits at the top of my browser, allowing for an easy escape from whatever I originally intended to do on the Web.
The transition from homework to stumbleupon.com is so subtle, I'm not really sure how it occurs, but it probably happens in a similar fashion to how Facebook keeps showing up on the screen. If I had to guess how stumbleupon.com brings my night's work to a standstill, I'd say it probably starts when the Web site surfaces in Safari during one of my infamous "study breaks" and from there the "Stumble!" button works its magic.
Yes, it is actually followed by an exclamation mark, which makes it come across as an exciting command I can never refuse. In a matter of seconds, I am torn away from my English homework and already blog-hopping the night away. Stumbleupon.com has proven to be an incredibly useful tool to increase site views for avid bloggers, but I prefer to be among the traffic, a "stumbler" if you will. It is considerably less work and it leaves some mystery behind the inner workings of that magic, time-stealing button.
Now that I am indulged in Web articles from "Ernest Hemingway: His Life and Works" to "McDonalds Menu Items From Around the World," the English essay is the last thing on my mind. Did you know there was such thing as a McSpaghetti? The brief food-oriented distraction was enough to make me hungry again. After the excursion to the kitchen, I decide it's time to get back to work.
Just before I am motivated enough to finish my assignment, I inevitably give in to that enticing "Stumble!" button and turn my screen from the half-finished English essay to pictures of drugged up spiders trying to make symmetrical webs. After being surprisingly satisfied with that stumble, I click it just one more time and find some National Geographic-worthy pictures of an underwater river off the coast of Mexico. Awesome! I click "I like this" to save it in my favorites and will now be more likely to stumble similar topics in the future, which is just the case in my next stumble where I find my future dream vacation destination: Huacachina, Peru. Who would've guessed? It's a picturesque oasis in the middle of a desert in southwestern Peru.
I click stumble again and come across "The 10 Greatest Apocalyptic Novels of All Time" and am reminded of the book "World War Z," which has been on my to-read list for quite some time. What other apocalyptic books am I missing out on? Wow, "I Am Legend" is a book too? With my thoughts back on literature, I am reminded of that English paper I initially opened my computer to write, after just this one last stumble.
