The Time Sucking Power of YouTube

YouTube is both a gift and a curse. As someone who loves music, I have found in YouTube an incredible and joyful home to concerts I missed, studio sets I could never be part of, and music I never heard but have come to love.
 
With everything digital, the good stuff and the bad stuff mingle — much like everything humans have for centuries knocked out: painting, writing, music, or whatever art form you can think of.  
Yet the easy access — a decent internet connection and some time to kill — offers up a delightful rabbit hole of joy for the bored and inquisitive alike.
 
For me, that arises from the odd moment when I see a link in a story about a musician that sends me to YouTube. The artist doesn’t matter. What matters is the sly algorithm designed to keep me wandering for hours like a sex-addict in a brothel. Or an infant whose thumb awaits.
 
Go to YouTube, enter the name of your favorite band or singer, and pretty soon you’ll find yourself alone at your desk with everyone gone or sitting somewhere while your spouse is calling local hospitals to see what happened to you. 
 
Algorithms. Curing boredom and encouraging mindless wandering in one fell swoop. Surrender to them carefully my friends.

© 2019 John Hofmeister. All rights reserved. Those rights being to me. So share freely but give credit where credit is due. Thanks.