Compare & Contrast

The key to a good finals week is the number and variety of ways you can find not to do all the work that has mounted all semester. There are many ways to waste time in the next week, but some of the most effective ways are AIM stalking and playing computer games.

Potential time wasting

Winner = Computer games

AIM stalking can only go on for so long, at some point you've checked every single away message three times and all of your friends have responded "not much" to the ever popular question, "What's up?" Computer games, on the other hand, can provide hours of endless entertainment. There is always another round to play or high score to beat. Snood can suck up hours of your time without you even noticing.

Usefulness

Winner = AIM stalking

Sometimes you can find really useful information by AIM stalking. People are incredibly revealing in their away messages. While stalking you can find out if your friends from home are having a birthday, who is dating who, and who is really really drunk on a Tuesday. All this information is fair game for future mocking.

Competitiveness

Winner = Computer games

Although there is a lot of pressure to have a better away message than your roommate, there is not a rubric for judging them quite yet.

Computer games, on the other hand, have scores to beat and can be two-player, giving you the opportunity to crush every single dude in your hallway.

Social Skills

Winner = AIM stalking

Some say that stalking is creepy, but in AIM world, that's simply not true. The Internet has made it socially acceptable to virtually track and follow your friends.

Computer games isolate the individual to their own computer, but AIM encourages people to reach out and stalk someone.

Those conversations you have with your friends from home when it is 3 a.m. and both of you have more work to do than is sensible are precious.

Something valuable will come out of that dialogue, even if it is talking about the merits of late night or ketchup. There are arguments that AIM is ruining an entire generation's ability to type correctly, but that's simply not true. LOL, J/K.

Burn out factor

Winner = AIM stalking

Procrastination is no good if you need to procrastinate from procrastinating. If you get sick of the ways you waste time, you might get tricked into doing something productive.

Computer games have a highly addictive quality to them, which is great for procrastination, but at some point, it reaches a limit. After awhile the repetitiveness will get to you.

AIM stalking never gets old. Away messages change, people sign on and off, and there is always something new.

Availability

Winner = AIM stalking

If you're writing a paper or doing research online, it is the easiest thing in the world to just let your mouse drift to the tool bar on the screen and start scanning your friends' profiles. If you're going to play a computer game, it requires the conscious decision to devote your time to the game, and only the game. Procrastinating by using AIM is practically guilt-free because sitting at your computer with your Word file still open lets you believe you're still getting work done, or at least it looks like you are.

Overall

Winner = AIM stalking

It's amazing where the time goes when you're online, hanging out with that cute little yellow guy.

Procrastination was taken to a whole new level with the advent of the Internet, in which AIM played a huge role, a level at which computer games just can't compete.