After a long day of school, practice, or whatever else you might have going on,  all you want to do is go home and take a quick break before starting on that enormous pile of homework lying in your backpack. What is supposed to be a five-minute look on Twitter, turns to a few minutes on Facebook, then Pinterest, and finally ends at 10:30 with an advanced knowledge of something completely irrelevant and an unopened backpack.

As I sit here, in front of this computer, trying to write this paper, I cannot help thinking about all of the wonderful things that I could be doing right now on this lovely device. 

The internet encompasses a fantastical array of knowledge available with just a few button clicks.  On the internet you are almost always a few seconds away from just about anything except completing your work.

Many work-related websites have links to post to Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, and Pinterest.  All of these websites, somewhat ironically, can be found on an article describing how to overcome social media procrastination. 

While the internet is a handy tool for many necessary tasks, too much of its offerings can be detrimental to a person’s life if it keeps the person from accomplishing his or her duties or spending time with their peers.  If it reaches a point, it can be considered an addiction, according to Dr. Kimberly Young of the American Psychological Association.

Some of the best ways to fight a social media addiction offered by SocialTimes is that you need to set a timer and allow your self a certain amount of time to be on the social network.  Another tip is to only allow yourself to be on one or two social networks a night.  Both of these ways are more effective than just outright quitting.  Quitting will only make you less productive in the fact that you will wish you were on the internet again.

Many social networking sites, including Facebook, were created in order to connect with peers about classes, yet many studies show that they are very rarely used for those purposes.

According to an investigation by Stephan de Villers, in a survey of 200 students, 39% use social networking sites for instant messaging, 22% play online games, 23% watch videos and 11% listen to music. Out of all the students, only 5% of the students use these websites for academic purposes.