Websites aren't a waste of time

The digital age is here and prevalent. I now do much of my homework on the computer and online. This is both a blessing and a curse. It's great to have so many tools at my fingertips in a screen that is thinner than my thumb width, however, it is also very easy to lose focus. The internet is one of the greatest procrastination innovations of all time. It seems to egg me to click on extraneous links, to read about outrageous things, to network with people, to look at pictures of cute animals, to listen to the newest song released by my favorite artist, and the list continues. I've now veered so far off course that I've wasted twenty minutes that could've been used to do research for my entrepreneurship class. But, was it really a waste? In that twenty minutes I heard a new song that my friends will be talking about the next day, read up to date news about what's going on in the world and watched a youtube video taught me how to tie off a bracelet. Perhaps what I learned in that twenty minutes wasn't about the market size of a retail business, but I was learning something. That's one of the many useful aspects of the internet.

In a world of ever increasing discoveries and understandings comes websites tailored to those discoveries. The two websites I'm going to be talking about in this blog deal with strengthening the mind. I suppose that's one of the most interesting things to me, because I am always striving to be better. These two websites can help you strengthen your mind and reduce the effects of diseases like Alzheimer's. One I came across because a friend told me about it. The other I decided to look up because I saw an ad on TV (I'm one of those suckers who fell for a television commercial).

sporcle.com is a website where there are hundreds of thousands of trivia games. There are 15 categories to choose from. There are quizzes on authors of books, naming 196 countries, recognizing cooperation symbols, and hundreds more. Some quizzes take a minute and others take more than ten. My friend and I have spent many hours on this website. You can feel good about being on it for a few minutes, because it's just like going to the gym for your brain. If the over 300,000 games to choose from isn't enough, you can create your own quizzes too.

I saw a commercial for lumosity.com which advertised that it could improve your performance in a way that just feels like playing games.

Immediately I was intrigued and checked out the website. Unfortunately, I don't have access to all the games because there is a monthly subscription cost. However, with the few games I have access to I can see how they are geared to improve my speed, memory, attention, flexibility, and problem solving.

My point with this blog wasn't to advertise these two websites, but to share a couple websites that I thought were interesting because they are aimed to challenge and exercise your brain. These are two websites that I can rationalize spending time on (I can't quite rationalize being on Facebook the same way). At least when I am using these websites to procrastinate I am also strengthening my brain.