YouTube is a great tool. There is a so much content on YouTube that can really be educational and motivation for you. I’ll be showing you a lot of said content in the future. Something else YouTube has is a lot of mindless crap. Mindless crap can be ok in moderation, but in many ways this is what makes YouTube much like television. The only difference is that they aren’t adding commercials to the beginning and ending of the videos…. yet.

You’re probably wondering why I’m talking about YouTube. The reason is because I’ve seen many people loose a lot of motivation and “fall off” because of YouTube. I’m not just picking on YouTube because a lot of sites do the same thing to people. MySpace and Facebook are other prime examples. Social Networking sites, although fun, suck people in to the point where they jump from one video to another or from one person’s profile to another. Next thing they know they’ve wasted 2 hours watching viral videos or searching for hot women on MySpace and Facebook. This is where the problem is.

There is a reason why schools and employers block sites like YouTube and Facebook. They do it because these sites are such a distraction, not to mention eat up bandwidth. The bandwidth usage doesn’t concern me, but the people who are wasting their time do.

Again, I’m not bagging on these sites too hard because I enjoy them too. You just have to realize the fine line between entertainment and wasting time. Anyone who says they use any of those sites “for work” is largely trying to make an excuse for their addiction. Sure, Facebook is a good way to ask a classmate what you missed in class today. Asking a classmate what happened in class doesn’t involve looking at pictures from one of your friend’s parties, finding a cute girl tagged in one of the photos, and “investigating” her profile for 10 minutes. I don’t know one person who isn’t like this or doesn’t know someone who is like this. I’m not saying it’s completely wrong, because I’m guilty of doing it myself. We just need to break out of those bad habits. Remember this next time you have some work to do, but instead you’re sending IMs of a hot girl you found on Facebook to 13 of your friends. If you’re one of the recipients of the “hot girl IM” check it out, then do them a favor and send them a link to this blog entry.