3 Fun Things You Can Do on the Internet When Overwhelmed With Choice

The other day, someone asked a question on MakeUseOf Answers that appeared fairly senseless. The question was "What can I do on the Internet?" I published it for the laugh and some interesting responses and they certainly came. What surprised me however, was that this question quickly made it into the Top 5 most active questions.

The best answer of course is, what fun things can you not do on the Internet? Maybe the Internet is so overwhelming that some people really do need some pointers. If the sheer amount of options is paralyzing to you, I have three very simple suggestions to get you going, and since you are already reading MakeUseOf, you are off to a great start!

1. StumbleUpon Something New

StumbleUpon is a rather addictive web discovery tool that helps you to randomly explore interesting websites, photos, or videos that others found worth looking at. The New York Times wrote that StumbleUpon is like "channel surfing the Internet". You can limit the randomness by stumbling with keywords, only sites of people you are following, or only pictures.

It's like chatting up random people at a party. You never know who you will run into and what you will learn.

StumbleUpon offers apps for mobile devices, add-ons / toolbars for your browser, and you can sign up using your Facebook account.

2. 43Things To Change Your Life [No Longer Available]

Our body and mind change every single day. While not all change in your life will be for the better, the more effort you put into it, the more you can control the direction of change. The only way to get anywhere specific in life is to set a goal and then set your mind and actions towards reaching it. The results will follow. But first, there must be a goal.

43Things is an excellent place to get started. Create a list of goals you want to achieve, be inspired by the goals others have set for themselves, share your list, and let the community help you achieve your goals, while you are supporting others on their mission.

As the screenshot above reveals, you can sign in with Facebook. You can start with any number of goals and you don't have to sign up or in at first. However, to receive the community support and save your list, becoming a member is key.

If 43Things sounds like your thing, you should dig a little deeper and have a look at these posts:

3. Know What's Hot With PopURLs

PopURLs is an aggregator of popular pages from various influential sources, revealing what is hot online. The content blocks can be viewed by categories (tech, science, news) or popular websites (Reddit, Wired, Digg). When you sign up using one of many login options (including Facebook, Google, and OpenID), you can customize your PopURLs start page.

First and foremost however, the site will keep you reading about events and news as they unfold.

Apart from its genuine aggregator, PopURLs has an entire network of sites, for example a discovery engine, a mobile site, or a time machine [Broken URL Removed].

Enjoying PopURLs? Also have a look a these articles:

Need more suggestions? Careful! You're about to get overwhelmed again. But I'll share these with you anyways:

Whatever you do online, remember that your brain is like a sponge and will soak up whatever you expose it to. This had better be good stuff! Now the real question is, what on earth are you supposed to do when the Internet is down? Any suggestions?

Image credits: Rene Jansa