not just random

Online distractions lead us to ‘wilf’:

To ‘wilf’ - an acronym for What was I looking for? - is the new verb for wasting one’s time when surfing the web, not looking for anything in particular.

So we have on the one hand sites like reddit, digg, etc. that make wilfing easier, if not encourage it. On the other hand, people who lose time engaging in it.

I would prefer not to blame the sites, in the same way as I would prefer not to blame available selection, when it’s the person having the freedom to pick. Choice should be deliberate, conscious though. Wilfing, in its more extreme form would probably be a mindless browsing with little to no regard at all for direction and/or outcome.

I would assume that the social components (i.e. discussion forum like features) that social link/news sites offer would go some way in making further browsing, potentially to sites of restricted relevance, more appealing, as for the user the focus could become more centered around the interaction with other users than the link content itself. If the social component is valued high enough, the time spent, even if it adds up to quite a bit, might not even be considered excessive.

I have heard people joke about voluntarily blocking access to certain websites for themselves during the day, as the sites were becoming to time consuming during their regular daily routine.

Others have suggested the problem may not be with the distraction, but rather with the activity that is being distracted from.

In the middle of it all, of course, is the individual who has to make a choice.