Youtube: It is ironic that the greatest outlet for creativity is probably one of the greatest killers of creativity in our society today.

Let’s think about it.

When was the last time you were bored? Probably this morning, maybe on the way to the bus. But when was the last time you were truly truly bored. The kind of bored where your mind wandered and wandered and wandered.

Here is the normal scenario. You are sitting at home. Bored. So you think “I will get up and….(something)”, but then you check facebook. 20 minutes later, you are still on facebook. And then you click on a video on a friends wall that takes you to youtube. According to youtube’s on tracking, the average mobile phone user once they have clicked on a youtube link spends another 40 minutes on youtube.

And because there are nearly 500 hours of new content uploaded to youtube every MINUTE, you will never run out of things to browse. Now it’s an hour later and while you are still bored, you never stopped being distracted for a minute.

Does this remind you of your life at all?

It might be surprising for a blog focused on helping people to stop watching pornography to encourage your mind to wander. But in this instance, that is exactly what you need. It’s getting back your ability to daydream. To be creative and think. When we let our minds actually have the time to wander, they actually may end up someplace.

There is a reason why you have all your best ideas in the shower. It’s because you can’t bring your phone in there. And so your mind wanders and scientifically this is proven to help with creativity and problem solving.

Cutting off everything right now is probably unrealistic for most people simply because it takes effort to unplug, so overzealous attempts generally fail.

But could you commit for a month, to not use youtube to aimlessly distract yourself from being bored? If you find yourself on youtube catching up on all the most recent Honest Trailers, turn it off and let your mind dream. Let it go someplace, or simply wait until you have a genuinely good idea for how to spend your time.

Turning off the distraction and noise can be difficult, but if you can do it you will find it rewarding.