Thing 12: Do You Digg?

Boy, could I ever waste...er, spend...a lot of time looking at these social media sites, and the stories/pictures/videos they link to. In the past 45 minutes, between patron questions and other tasks, I've read articles on giant Antarctic starfish, the recently discovered salt flats on Mars, some really weird photographs, and, my favorite, a court transcript from Great Britain that was absolutely hilarious (http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~vy203/archives/2005/04/19/the-most-entertaining-trial-ever/).

I particularly liked Newsvine, because you basically have limitless access to AP stories, which is very useful. Not as fun as some of the celebrity trash and crazy videos, but good nonetheless.

I tried to submit the BBC article "Drink age 'could be raised to 21'" to Digg, but it was already added. Not at all difficult, though, and I could still comment on the article if I wanted. (I also tried to submit to reddit, I didn't like it as well because you have to create an account.)

I do fear that in the long run this would decrease my productivity, as it is addictive and virtually limitless. And no, I'd never before read an article because it appeared on one of these sites.