Cure Your Boredom Online
Are you suffering from boredom? Do you want the Internet to make it all better? If so, you're not alone: over half of all adults and more than 80% of adults 18-29 years spend time online for no particular reason other than for fun. Oops! Did that statistic just make you boreder? Quick -- read this article!
Contents
Steps
Curing Your Boredom Through Entertainment
- Go to YouTube. YouTube (youtube.com) is the Pandora's Box of online entertainment. If you can't find something on here to tickle your fancy, it's likely you have no fancy to tickle (see a doctor).
- You can try searching a word or idea that appeals to you, such as "silly kittens," or you can start with a video you know and see what else the YouTube deity recommends.
- If you find a video you like, check out the Channel and view their Playlist for similar videos.
- Sometimes you can find movies and TV shows on YouTube. They might be broken into "parts."
- Listen to music. There are a lot of sites online that allow you to listen to your favorite music and even some that suggest other music you may like. Here are some sites that let you listen for free:
- Pandora Radio (pandora.com). You have to sign up for it, but it introduces you to music based on your taste.
- iTunes Radio. This is similar to Pandora, but if you have iTunes already you don't have to sign up for anything.
- Spotify (spotify.com). You'll have to sign up for this, too, but you can listen to whole albums on here.
- YouTube (youtube.com). And, of course, there's always YouTube to listen to your music.
- Watching your favorite musical artist's music video or live performance can be fun, too.
- Watch a movie/TV show online. A movie will occupy you for a good 90 minutes, and a good TV show will have you binging until your boredom is but a faint memory.
- If you don't have a membership to a movie/TV show website, the best ones offer free trials: Amazon Prime (amazon.com/prime); Netflix (netflix.com); Hulu (hulu.com); HBO NOW (hbonow.com).
- Watch movie trailers. If you can't find the movie/TV show you want to watch, browsing movie trailers on IMDB (imdb.com) or iTunes is a fun way to excite you for the future.
- Browse social media sites. On websites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter you can look at old pictures of your friends, creep on what everyone else is doing, and see what's trending.
- Play a free online game. Online games range from mind puzzles to mind-less, and there's a lot of them out there, so there's at least one that will fit your mood.
- Armor Games (armorgames.com). Known for its good selection of action games.
- Miniclip (miniclip.com). Offers a wide-array of games, but has a distinctly childish feel.
- Addicting Games (addictinggames.com). Also offers a wide-array of games, but has a distinctly mature feel.
- Kongregate (kongregate.com). Known for its great selection of MMOs (Massive Multiplayer Online [game]s). This site also allows game developers to easily post their games, so you're likely to find some cutting-edge games on here.
- Browse memes. A "meme," generally defined, is a humorous picture or video to which users may add witty text for greater humorous effect. You can find memes all across the Internet -- and even create your own! Here are some meme sites to check out:
- Quickmeme (quickmeme.com). Your standard meme site with popular meme images and hilarious captions.
- Cheezburger (memebase.cheezburger.com). This site offers memes and more, such as Geek culture and even explanations of popular memes.
- There are a lot of others. A quick search will find you more!
- Visit a boredom specialty site. Many websites make it their specialty to compile lists of funny websites and inane images for the express purpose of curing your boredom. Here are a few:
- Bored (Bored.com). This site is designed to tackle boredom from all different, fun angles.
- Bored.OverNow (bored.overnow.com). This site links you to some of the funniest sites on the Internet.
- Pointless Sites (pointlessSites.com). Don't let the name mislead you, the point of these sites is to cure your boredom!
- eBaum's World (ebaumsworld.com). This site has it all, from videos to pictures, to just plain funny stuff. Warning, though, some material is graphic and may not be suitable for children.
- StumbleUpon (stumble upon.com). Although you have to sign up to use, this site takes your interests and then directs you to sites that would appeal to you.
Curing Your Boredom Productively
- Learn a language. Although it's not something that can be accomplished in one sitting, learning a language is something that can fill up all your future boredom spells with study time. There are several good, free sites that teach languages, here are a few:
- Memrise (memrise.com). This site adapts its teaching method to your learning style.
- Duolingo (duolingo.com). This site incorporates games into your language learning.
- Livemocha (livemocha.com). This site lets you chat with real native speakers as you learn!
- Learn other subjects. There are a lot of websites that offer free lectures, courses, and information on a wide array of subjects. Remember that thing you always wanted to read about? Well, you've got time now. Here are few website suggestions:
- Open Culture (openculture.com). This site contains a lot of educational and cultural tools, from online courses, to movies and videos, and more!
- Khan Academy (khanacademy.org). You have to sign up, but once you do you'll be on your way to learning new skills and subjects.
- iTunes U. If you have iTunes, then you already have this, and it offers scores of lectures in all different subjects from top-tier universities.
- None of these strike your fancy? Search for more educational sites online, where you can learn music theory and even coding!
- Start a blog. You always said you wanted to, and now's the chance. Your blog could chronicle your daily life, offer your advice or opinions, or just discuss a favorite hobby or topic. There's a lot of options to choose from as far as which blogging site to use, but here are a few free ones:
- Blogger (blogger.com). Backed by Google, Blogger is trustworthy and reliable.
- Tumblr (tumblr.com). The most popular blogging site available.
- WordPress (wordpress.com). Next to Tumblr, the most popular blogging site.
- Take a personality quiz/test. Don't panic! These are meant to tell you something about yourself, so you can't fail them (probably).
- There are a lot of "fake" personality/psychology tests out there, so look for ones that are backed by scientific research.
- Always see those people writing INTJ and ENTP and all those other acronyms? Well, those relate to personalities and they're determined by one of the most popular personality tests out there, the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator.
- Read news articles. Now might be a good time to catch up on local/world events. You probably already have a favorite news source, but here are some suggestions:
- Vice (vice.com). A very hip and independent news source for a new generation of informed citizens.
- The Drudge Report (drudgereport.com). More of a news resource, this site links you to other news sources' articles.
- The Huffington Post (huffingtonpost.com). This site offers a wide array of news from different "voices."
- Join a cause. There are many online communities that support causes and you can find your own by searching for a cause you believe in. Your support doesn't have to be financial, you could write or contribute in some other way, too.
- Volunteer for a political campaign. Many political campaigns take on volunteers to either write or market online. Find a candidate you believe in, look up their campaign site, and contact them.
- Edit wikiHow pages. This can be a lot of fun: you get to learn about a certain task or concept and help others to understand it by writing an article (like this one!) to explain how it is done well.
- Follow this link if you'd like to write an article and already have an idea on what you'd like to write about: Write.
- Follow this link if you'd like suggestions on what to write about or if you'd like to write an article based upon a request made by another community member: Requests/Suggestions for Your Writing.
- Follow this link if you don't want to write but you have a request/suggestion for an article someone else should write: Request/Suggest an Article.
- Plan a trip. If you are getting bored often, maybe it's time for a change of scenery. There are lots of tools available online to help you prepare your trip. Here are but a few:
- Google Flights (google.com/flights). One of the best flight searches out there is hosted by the best search engines out there. Go figure.
- Airbnb (airbnb.com). You can find some remarkably beautiful apartments/houses to stay in at your destination -- and it's not that expensive!
- CouchSurfing (couchsurfing.com). An alternative to paying for a room is to couchsurf: it's free and your host may be willing to show you around the area!
- Lonely Planet (lonelyplanet.com). This is an incredible resource for traveling. Whether you're trying to decide on where to go or you're trying to decide on what to do, this site has it all.
- Chat with strangers. Craving some human contact to soothe your boredom? All you have to do is search "Chat Online" and a score of websites will appear.
- You will be able to video or text chat anonymously, but you never know when you might meet someone cool.
- Warning: such websites may be inappropriate for children.
- Go online shopping. This is probably not your best option, particularly if you're trying to save money and you have an itchy shopper finger. Nevertheless, you can always just browse: browsing can be fun, too!
Warnings
- Many of the websites included in this article may include material inappropriate for children.
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