End-of-term examinations? Let’s watch some cats! How internet supports procrastination

Surely, it’s not a surprise that I’ve spent a few hours before I started to write this note watching cat videos, visiting random blogs, scrolling Facebooks newsfeed three weeks back and listening to weird songs. Since everyone has unlimited access to the internet, procrastination has become even easier! And it gives us a really wide range of virtual places where we can escape from work or study.

So at the beggining maybe let’s make sure what procrastination actually is.

If Wikipedia can be a trustworthy source, procrastination means avoiding duties that you have to do, by doing other things, that bring entertainment and that are more pleasant. It’s just postponing necessary tasks until the last moment. I bet there is no single person, who has never experienced this situation. But procrastination is no joke, in the long term it can cause really bad effects and has a negative impact on one’s life. At first, leaving important duties until the last moment is very stressful. The sooner the deadline is the more stressed we are, then the panic sets in and we finally complete our task quickly because we have no time. But as a result, the task is completed poorly. So we are not satisfied with our work and it makes us less confident, sometimes even guilty and dissapointed about ourselves. People who procrastinate a lot, can have serious problems with self satisfaction and with fullfilling their life goals, what can even lead to some mental diseases like depression.

We should pay attention to our procrastinating habits, nobody wants to have mental issues, even if it comes from simple laziness. But the tempting vision of avoiding work is stronger than any fear. On the other hand, the advantage is that we can do many useful things due to procrastination, like for example cleaning the room (why not three times?), cooking dinner for the next two days, walk the dog, call a friend we haven’t talked to for months, make a list of things to do, or learn some new words in foreign language.

But nowadays the field which gives us the most opportunities to avoid the duties is the internet. Why not try all of the possibilities (before writing the next part of the note)?

So the most popular way of procrastinating on the Internet is watching... funny cats videos! Is there anyone who doesn’t like to see some cute kitties stuck in boxes? Cats are the most amusing animals of the Internet, and they are everywhere. Furthermore with cats time flies faster, one video after another, it’s already midnight and you still didn’t start writing your paper. Due tomorrow, do tomorrow. So when you see that your friend recently liked a few videos on Facebook and photos of cats – you can be sure that she is procrastinating (true story)!

Internet users know how to make procrastination more entertaining, instead of common pages, that we just scroll all the time (like Facebook, 9gag or Instagram), there are sites made ESPECIALLY for avoiding chores.  

- Were we talking about cats? I have a brilliant example: https://procatinator.com/ (highly addictive!), cat GIFs mixed with epic songs - this is exactly what you need a day before exam, enjoy! Ah, you can also share your favourite cat with friends if you want to ruin their future…

- Let’s stay in the topic of animals, what do you think about cows? There is a website, where you just move your cursor to find an invisible cow, the closer you are to the animal, the louder the voice is shouting "cow!". How many cows will you find? http://findtheinvisiblecow.com/

- For those, who like to procrastinate calmly, there is relaxing place on the internet. The view of a sunset on the seaside, and exactly two minutes of doing totally nothing. Maybe two minutes will be enough to convince youself to finally start studying? http://www.donothingfor2minutes.com/

- Or maybe you need some activity while wastinig precious time? http://www.pointerpointer.com/ is the place where you can excercise your finges on the touchpad, point anywhere on the black screen, and it will show a photo of person pointing exactly at the place where your coursor is. Let’s try to display the same picture two times, what fun!

Just one episode… wait, did i watch the whole season?

Yes, you are right, the other thing that we do on the internet to procrastinate is watching series. It always starts with "I will just take a little break, just one episode", or "only one episode and I’m starting my task", but it never works. And of course the Internet is there for you to widen your knowlegde… about all the characters from your favourite series. Online streaming platforms have an unbelievably wide range of series to watch, some of them not only waste your time, money as well (Netflix), but you can also procrastinate for free (here you have a list of sites to help you procrastinate: http://adcoock.com/sites/top-26-best-websites-to-watch-series-online-full-episodes-free-and-without-registration.html). After watching you can search for some titbits about characters, next seasons or actors, this could never stop!  

So as we can see, while internet should help us with study or work, it just helps to avoid all this stuff. What can we do about that? Maybe just turn off the computer? But we still have a smartphone to play some games… The internet gives us so many opportunities, we can use it in a good way, or at least we can procrastinate productively. Everything depends on you, you just have to get your act together, grit your teeth and start completing the chores. Or just wait for the last-minute panic, the best motivator for procrastinators.