The Weekly Ringer

The University of Mary Washington Student Newspaper

Top 5 Distracting Sites During Finals

3 min read

by ISAAC WHALEN

Exam time is upon us, but fortunately we live in a world with the Internet. How many times have we sat down to write a paper, and then been distracted by those glorious multiple tabs? This list will keep you away from your work for hours upon end. So minimize all your other windows and get ready for a much needed study break–you can finish that essay tomorrow before your first class.

1. Hulu.com: With a wide selection of TV shows, movies, documentaries and movie trailers, Hulu is the perfect way of putting off that paper or studying for the big exam.  I personally enjoy wasting time at this website, because not only can I discover shows that are off the air, but I can also catch episodes of newer shows that I missed. Viewers with an account can subscribe to series and have new episodes saved to their profile. Hulu is truly one of the Internet’s greatest places to procrastinate. Site recommendations: Archer, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Community.

2. Facebook.com: A very popular website, Facebook is definitely a part of time-wasting royalty. No need explaining the massive amounts of quizzes, photo stalking, IM chatting and status updating that goes on at this site, because we all have done it at one point. Facebook is unique because it gives the user a false sense of activity while not actually accomplishing anything. I enjoy procrastinating here, because I can find out who else is wasting time with me. It’s a kind of community of slackers all in one place. Site recommendations: putting parents on limited profile, deleting status updates from people who treat the site like Twitter.

3. Collegehumor.com: This site definitely holds its own against all challengers. With funny videos, articles, comics and links to hundreds of other sites, College Humor is definitely a good time waster. This site has such a wide selection of original series they created their own TV show on MTV in 2009. Also, the site has a lot of really funny articles and good links to web comics and other humor sites. What I really enjoy about this site is that since their content is based on college life, it is easily relatable. Site recommendations: Jake and Amir, Hardly Working.

4. Superpoop.com: Now don’t let the name fool you; this site is actually a web comic. By using real photographs and humorous text, creator “Drew” makes comics about almost everything.  This site is just one of the creator’s three web comics and has links to his wife’s comic, “Natalie Dee.” While the humor might not be for everyone, it certainly is a cool place to forget about your three-page paper due tomorrow or your group meeting that you just missed.  Site recommendations: check out the links to the other web comics

5. Cracked.com: Updated daily, this humor site has hundreds of articles from everyone from staff writers to contributing users. What is cool about this site is that most of their articles are lists, stating the five or seven best something-or-others, like this article. The site also has many Photoshop contests. With a large archive of past articles and photo contests, Cracked will keep you entertained and sufficiently distracted. Site recommendations: Articles, Photoshop contests, Craptions contest