Internet Is Helpful - Productive Ways to Spend Time on the Internet

Internet Is Helpful - Productive Ways to Spend Time on the Internet

What are the most productive ways to spend time on the Internet | I think that many of these answers lose the point of the question. The real problem is not that there is a shortage of useful web pages on the Internet, it is difficult to take advantage of those web pages. 

What does it say about human beings that we can really get a free Ivy League education online but almost nobody does? 



The dropout rates of Coursera and Udacity and Khan Academy are so phenomenal that they make completion rates look like rounding errors. 

We live in a culture of attention deficit, and the solution is not better websites, they are better humans.

 I suggest the following tips:

Internet-Is-Helpful-Productive-Ways-to-Spend-Time-on-the-Internet

Completely remove Facebook, Reddit, Twitter and any other social site from your life. If you cannot do this, strictly regulate the total time spent on these sites from 30 minutes to one hour each day. 

You can download Chrome extensions to help you with this, such as StayFocusd. But, I can't emphasize enough how these sites will ruin your life. 



Everyone always comes in defense of social networks with excuses like "well, I use Facebook to keep in touch with my friends and family from high school abroad" etc. 

However, when a distribution of how people really allocate their time is observed, almost nothing is spent on doing the things that people point out when they justify their behavior. 

Internet-Is-Helpful-Productive-Ways-to-Spend-Time-on-the-Internet

It's always just meaningless scrolling, animated gifs, cat videos, the first twenty seconds of a really tidy conference, and so on.

What could be a more devastating reprimand of social networks than the fact that nobody uses it for the reasons it was designed?

 This is, of course, helping the most important reality that Facebook research consistently shows that makes everyone sadder and less satisfied with life on average.

Practice efficient procrastination. If you need time to recharge between difficult activities, look for outlets where you can develop as a person. For me, that is chess.

 I will play a couple of Blitz games between reload projects, and, more importantly, I am not watching cat videos. For other people, it could be practicing an instrument, reading a book or drawing.
Lists of pending tasks. 

There may be nothing more incredibly effective than a to-do list. Write down what you have to do, prioritize the list by difficulty and be extremely detailed when writing your goals. Don't get fancy, don't use Evernote or a Chrome extension, or any application, just use paper and pencil. 

Do not write "Finish ethics research work". Write "Write a page in Chapter 3 of 'The practical ethics of Peter Singer." The smaller, the more discreet the tasks, the better they become. 

Also plan how you will efficiently postpone tasks. Type "play chess," "see a Noam Chomsky conference," "do a DuoLingo lesson," and so on between large tasks. Take a nap if you are too exhausted to be efficient with your procrastination.

Remember: 

when you do not plan your time, you do not take advantage of the opportunities that are seized, and you go the path of least resistance, which are usually videos of Angry Birds and YouTube.

Internet-Is-Helpful-Productive-Ways-to-Spend-Time-on-the-Internet

Who cares? This is perhaps the most important point. The next time you are about to post something on Facebook, or watch a funny video, or read a blog post, or participate in an Internet discussion, ask yourself: Who cares? If something doesn't help you become a better you, don't waste your time.


Today I read a BuzzFeed article about "Epic Twitter Comebacks." I had the bait to read the article by the scandalous title, and then I got angry at myself for finishing it. 

The article simply did not matter. Nothing productive could come from reading it or writing it. The most popular articles shared anywhere (Facebook, Buzzfeed and countless imitation sites) are the journalistic equivalent of McDonald's. Consuming them makes everyone worse.

I found myself kneeling in a compilation of Vines lasting one hour, and twenty minutes later, I have to do a reality check: this shit literally doesn't matter. 



The world would be a better place if everything disappeared. What possible value could you have spent all your time consuming 7-second videos without thinking for hours? It doesn't make you happier, it doesn't leave a lasting sense of satisfaction; It is only raw and unproductive consumption.

Now go back and think about all the countless hours you spent in front of the screens, convincing yourself that it is just one more video, or just one more image, just one more ... and then remember that this is your life. 

This is all, this is all we have; You are the aggregate of your experiences. Do you want to summarize the average of those experiences in a few URLs, a couple of videos and some little enthusiastic commitments to improve yourself?

So stay alert! When you are immersed in meaningless consumption, ask yourself: "Who cares?" If what you are doing well is not helping you to be a better you, do something else.

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