What is Washington State’s favorite “time-suck”?
Some people love it; some people hate it. What I'm Referring to is wasting time. In this day and age, let's call it a time-suck. It's a cruder reference, but it probably gets the meaning across. It's something that you don't necessarily want to do. But you do it, and afterwards you find that you've wasted an hour of your life, and you don't know why.
What is a time-suck?
According to merriam-webster.com,
it’s ‘an activity to which one devotes a lot of time that might be better or more productively spent doing other things’
To be honest, I don't think the term wasting time turned into time-suck until the Internet was invented. I was curious to find out if there was a particular time-suck that is more popular in Washington state than any other. My research was not very conclusive.
What does Copilot say?
Microsoft Copilot says,
‘If you’re looking for a state‑wide “time suck” in Washington, rain is the most consistent and widespread one. The state’s climate, especially on the west side, is defined by long, wet seasons and frequent overcast skies, which can turn even short trips into extended waits for sun.’
I certainly do agree that Western Washington's rainy weather can rob you of time spent trying to deal with wet weather, but my thought is what's the most popular time-suck? The ones that we here in Washington voluntarily choose to waste our time with.
When I rephrased the question to, what is Washington State's favorite waste of time? Copilot takes a totally different view.
It's about sight seeing.
Now it says the top answer is the Fremont Troll. If you've never seen the Fremont Troll, it is certainly worth a look. But how much time would you actually waste seeking it out so you can stand there and look at it and say “Yep. That's a troll.”
The rest of the answers that Copilot gave me were also related to tourists looking for things to see and then after seeing them say, “well that was a waste of time”.
Places like John's Beachcombing Museum in Forks, WA.
(Don't try and look it up, my antivirus won't let me.)
Or the Maryhill replica of Stonehenge.
What about Youtube?
My own personal favorite time-suck? YouTube. Honestly, I don't know why I look at YouTube. I find myself with a few minutes to kill, I'm sitting there, I take out my phone, I go to YouTube, and then I discover an hour later that I'm still looking at it. I have to just shake my head and say, “why did I do this”?
The worst part is the algorithm. If you wind up looking at something on YouTube and then you decide “I really didn't like this, I really shouldn't see this again”. The algorithm latches onto that, and it starts showing it to you all the time. I'm sure there's something I can do to tell it not to do that, but I don't know what it is. Maybe I'll ask my daughter.
Seriously, looking at YouTube is nothing like sitting and reading a book. Although my daughter Beth might dispute that claim. She likes to look at YouTube for cooking videos.
Me, I look at YouTube to waste time.
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