muscle memory, don't send me to people.com again

January 13, 2016 7:08 PM

I absolutely hate that on instinct i go to people, entertainment weekly, and e online multiple times a day. please help me drop the gossip and find more productive ways to waste my time.

i feel like i get around on the internet and i do a good job of cataloguing interesting sites when i find them. however, i cannot stop my fingers from ⌘T peop or ⌘T ew and it's driving me mad. i've started to abstain from them (and immediately closing them when i realize i've gone and opened one of them _again_), but i'm finding the rest of my regular site choices now seem drab.

i've got a steady stream of cat videos and google news (RIP AJAM). i get a lot of variety from twitter and sometimes pinterest. for some reason i don't enjoy stumbleupon, though it's a perfect remedy for my web-malaise. i don't want to get drowned in RSS feeds.

i need you now to show me the way i should go. do you have five sites that you hit every day? are they the bank, google news, linkedin, your credit cards, and the blue/green? no? then i'd love to know what they are.

posted by ovenmitt to Computers & Internet (18 answers total)

As dumb as it sounds, can you clear your cache so that 'peop' doesn't go where you want it to? I know when I instinctively type 'face' or 'ask', I hit enter before i know it, and if the site isn't memorized, it will give me an error, which forces me to think about my actions slightly more deliberately.
posted by hydra77 at 7:59 PM on January 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

Best answer: I like MLKSHK which has some degree of MeFi overlap and I can go for funny photos and some random meme-y stuff which I might otherwise not have any idea of. I browse Flickr commons for public domain photos, sometimes just tossing random words into the search box there (owl, mouse, funny).
posted by jessamyn at 8:03 PM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I like reading The Morning News ever day. Good source for some interesting links.
posted by mollywas at 8:10 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

There are plenty of high(er) brow websites that are gossip-adjacent but are also enriching. New York Magazine's blogs Vulture and The Cut are both really good. You'll still read about some of your favorite celebrities, but from a more thoughtful/clever angle, plus lots of interesting people who would never be covered by People.
posted by acidic at 8:11 PM on January 13, 2016

Why do you hate it? Why does your time wasting need to be productive? I'm a member of ONTD, and it's my this is me time, I don't need to feel guilty pleasure. Time wasting, by its nature, need not be productive. Personally, I'm glad for the brief release of mindless non-productivity. I'd be happy to recommend other sites, but your question doesn't tell me why. In other words, I strongly believe lowbrow amusement shouldn't be shameful, so I'm trying to figure out where you're coming from.
posted by Ruki at 8:29 PM on January 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

what about installing a browser extension that blocks certain websites? I've mostly used Facebook Nanny and the like but there are plenty of these for Firefox or Chrome which restrict your access to whatever site you want to put on the blacklist.

Some examples for chrome: Stayfocusd, Strict Workflow (25 minutes of work, 5 minutes of unrestricted browsing)

Firefox: Leechblock
posted by girl Mark at 8:49 PM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Cracked.com. They're killing it in the comedy + education department. Jack O'Brien is a young genius.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:57 PM on January 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I use Nuzzel. It smartly aggregates the links from people you follow on Twitter. It also has a "news you may have missed" feature, which while I don't know what the algorithm is, always gives me additional interesting stuff to read.
posted by O9scar at 10:02 PM on January 13, 2016

Two ideas: I LOVE Strict Workflow for Chrome, as girl Mark mentioned. You can block any sites you want for any period of time you want. I block social media for 25 minutes at a time, and then get a 5-minute unblock window in which to check FB. The downside is you have to click the button yourself to start each block window.

Secondly, I know you say you don't want to get bogged down in RSS feeds, but I love Feedly, and when I found I was refreshing Gawker constantly as a way to kill time or have a little downtime, I made a promise to myself to check Feedly instead. Now I keep it as a pinned tab in my browser so the urge to open a new tab is a little less. And there is NOW WAY I can read the hundreds of feeds I get in a day, so once a week I employ my boyfriend "Mark Allasread" to get rid of them for me. :)
posted by Brittanie at 1:21 AM on January 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Firstly, I'd suggest using KeepMeOut rather than just closing tabs. It's a lot easier than trying to resist the temptation when a tab's open,and it also allows you to still view those sites a limited amount of times. I use it for blocking the same kind of sites you're wanting to move away from(gossip stuff is my kryptonite).

As for site recommendations; if you like literature,history and humor I'd suggest The Toast, it's quite a jumble but there's a lot of gems in there.

I also read Bust's online articles a lot, because it still has the pop culture and fashion stuff but there's a lot of nuanced articles as well.

Other random ones: Refinery29, Spin, and ChowHound
posted by InkDrinker at 1:41 AM on January 14, 2016

Best answer: I have a similar problem, and installing various extensions or just owning my lowbrow browsing habits wouldn't satisfy me because what I really want is other, more interesting things to read.

I'm still looking, of course, but I like Longform and Longreads for getting me out of that "you just typed faceb and you are already on Facebook" rut.
posted by Metroid Baby at 2:53 AM on January 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

SelfControl is a Mac app that puts in a timed system-wide site blacklist, in case you find yourself opening another browser just to bypass your rules. I use it often to block reddit, MeFi, and Hacker News for 8 hours when I get to work.

Sometimes it's better for me to take a break from the computer entirely, and so I keep my e-book reader around, or an actual print magazine... Or I just sit and drink some tea.
posted by mbrock at 3:33 AM on January 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

I use the focus app which is brutal and schedule hours during which I can access and glut myself on things. I had to install it on my phone to mirror the laptop so I wouldn't just switch to browse.

Upside was that by shifting the timing to my preferred sleep schedule, I go to bed earlier (nothing to read/watch - it closes all video-playing apps and browsers past email) and then look forward to waking up earlier because I've scheduled in an hour before my previous wake-up time where I get to loll around in bed and catch-up on favourite blocked websites. Then they get blocked again so I have nothing else to do but get out of bed and start the day.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 3:50 AM on January 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Seconding what mbrock said. When I need to break the gossip rag/Instagram/lifestyle blog spiral, I turn on SelfControl. If you have a Mac, it's the best.
posted by pinetree at 6:33 AM on January 14, 2016

Response by poster: Thank you for the suggestions, everyone. I'm not looking for a way to control the sites I go to; I'm looking for new websites to fill the hole left by not visiting the ones that I believe prey on celebrity personal lives, exist through conjecture, or peddle gossip that doesn't matter to me. I don't check out pictures of my accountant when she's not at work and I have greater peace when I don't see my actors when they're not at work, either.

I visit these sites only b/c they're the ones I've always visited. I'm not interested in that being a part of my make-up anymore. The internet is made up of all the things and I'd rather go elsewhere...maybe where you go.
posted by ovenmitt at 7:05 AM on January 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: My big 5 time-wasters that are actually brain-nutritious:

Live Science
Science News
Science Daily
CNet
The Guardian (UK)
posted by Chitownfats at 7:07 AM on January 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: It started as a "time waster" at work but has helped me to completely turn my life into a better path: Mr. Money Moustache
posted by ainsley at 10:06 AM on January 14, 2016

Best answer: I tend to just hit one site, but it's my RSS reader, so there are still multiple sources. For non-standard stuff (since I assume you know about NYT, BBC, etc.) I like to look at:

Smithsonian Magazine
ResearchBuzz Firehose
Lifehacker is always entertaining
Or, you know, all the Gawker blogs
For a celebrity fix that is less gossip-oriented, there's always snarky fashion commentary from Tom and Lorenzo and the Fug Girls
And there's always Reddit - I like Today I Learned and Not the Onion

Uh, these might skew a little geeky.
posted by timepiece at 7:26 AM on January 15, 2016