“I’m bored.” It’s probably one of the most common instant messages I get from my friends. With a wealth of information available on the Internet nowadays, it’s hard to imagine that anybody could be bored. I’d imagine that half the problem is sifting through sites finding which ones are actually good. I’ve searched the Internet (while bored, of course) to bring you the ultimate list of things to do online when you’re bored.
Play Games – There are a lot of sites online where you can play games for free. It’s frustrating when you find a site that only lets you play for so long and then you have to buy a membership. The best site I’ve found to play free games is Pogo.com. I’ve been a member for over five years. There are a few games you have to be a paid member to play. But, there are tons of free games you can play without joining.
Do Jigsaw Puzzles – Puzzles are a great way to spend some time if you’re bored. The thing I really like about JigZone is you can compare your speed to other people. A meter runs on the bottom of your screen that tells you what the fastest time is and what the average time is. Don’t let it distract you! There’s a wide variety of puzzle difficulties and many, many different themes to choose from. The best thing about JigZone is that it’s free. You don’t even have to provide an e-mail address.
Watch funny/Amazing Videos – Most of the funny video sites online are full of pop up ads. YouTube is a great place to find funny videos. Another great site to watch both funny and amazing videos is HahaClips. Watch videos of slips, falls, pranks, celebrities and more. Some may not be suitable for children (language, etc).
Make Money – There are places, such as Mechanical Turk, that you can make money on in your free time. Another good one is KGB where you get paid for answering people’s text messages from your computer.
Write – You can write when you’re bored. You can write in a blog for fun, start a diary. Open Diary is a great site where you can make a public or private diary. Or, you can write and get paid. Sites like this one will pay you to contribute content on anything you want. Other sites similar to Associated Content include eHow and Bukisa.
Read – If you can’t find any interesting articles online to read, try browsing e-books. You can download the book right online and start reading it instantly. A great place to do this is with Amazon’s Kindle, which allows you to read books anywhere.
Trivia – Test your knowledge on a variety of subjects and even learn some new things by taking some trivia quizzes. A great place to do this is Fun Trivia. You do have to sign up. But, it’s free. You also earn ranks and badges as you take the quizzes. There are ads on the site. But, if you join as a gold member, there won’t be. Give it a try.
Feel Better About Your Life – Think your life is bad? At FML people submit short 2-3 sentences of things that happened to them recently. Most of them are pretty hilarious! Actually, about 99% of them are funny. Browse by category.
Watch TV Online – You can watch television right from your computer at Hulu. It’s free and you don’t have to sign up or download anything either. There’s not a lot of recent stuff. But, you can find old seasons television shows or watch that episode you missed.
Learn A New Skill – There is tons of free information out there. Most sites will charge you for information. But, whether you want to learn a new language, magic tricks, or anything else, you can find it for free if you look hard enough. Even if the learning websites do charge for information, they’ll typically provide a few sample videos or some kind of free information. For example, most magic sites will show one free trick on their site. If you go to, say, five sites, that’s five new tricks you can learn. Most of the time, when you’re trying to learn skill for free online, you have to go through several pages of websites on your search because the ones that charge are going to be higher on the list. Go about five pages back to start seeing the free sites.
