5 Websites That Will Keep You Sane on a Rainy Day
American adults spend an average of 5 hours using digital media every single day, according to an eMarketer report. Although that might sound a bit excessive to some, I find myself spending an embarrassing amount of time glued to a screen when I’m having one of “those days.” You know, rainy days when your bed is almost too inviting and there’s no reason for Carpe-ing any Diem. Thinking about the times where I can’t be bothered to do anything mildly productive, I always follow the same patterns of social networking and Netflix, rinse, repeat. Lately, I’ve been scouring with web for new things to do, so here’s what I’ve come up with. Behold: 5 wonderful, time-wasting websites!
Lately, I’ve been getting really sick of the baseless, cringe-worthy “facts” I’ve been seeing on Facebook. It’s almost as though text over an image is enough to convince people of just about anything. Cue Useful Science, a website created by genius grad students with the aim of summarizing real scientific findings into useful facts. The website covers a plethora of well-researched topics, from creativity to nutrition and even persuasion. Keep this website in mind next time your Great Aunt Brenda forwards you an email on how orange peels are great for toenail fungus.
2) Free Rice
Free Rice is one of those websites that combines everything that’s good in the world: learning, charity and fun. Here’s how it works: you are given a word and are given four different definitions. For every question you get right, the site donates 10 grains of rice to the UN World Food Programme. This website is seriously addictive—in fact, since I started writing this, they’ve donated 500 grains of rice and my vocabulary has only improved (I hope).
3) Worn on TV
Do you ever watch your favorite TV show, see a super cute outfit and find yourself drooling? Are you ever caught daydreaming at work the night after The Mindy Project because you just need to cop Mindy Lahiri’s plaid dress? For the longest time it was almost like these outfits were totally unattainable, but with Worn on TV, you’re able to snag the exact (or at least close enough) outfit from your favorite shows. The website is impeccably organized, you can search by episode, character and popularity. What are you waiting for?
I don’t know if you were hoping this would be a euphemism for something deeper, but Find the Invisible Cow is exactly what it sounds like. This single purpose website is like a virtual Marco-Polo game, except you don’t have to shout back. You simply move your cursor around the page and listen for the word “cow.” The louder the word gets, the closer you are to the invisible cow.
5) Gifff
Have you ever wondered where Gifs come from? I’m not familiar with the science behind Gifs, but it’s always seemed very complicated. When videos turn into Harry Potter-like moving images, there MUST be some magic involved, right? Apparently, making them can be really simple and you don’t even need an owl from Hogwarts to make them! All you need to do is copy a URL from YouTube and choose the bit you want as a Gif. In no time, you’ll be the coolest kid on Tumblr.
Featured image via Shutterstock
