Welcome to Hippogryff!

Welcome to Hippogryff, weary internet traveller!

Many hours have been put into this informative website dedicated to exposing the timewasting nature of the internet. Many hours in which its designers could have been:

• spending time with loved ones;
• playing with pets;
• reading self-improvement books;
• finishing school/home/work-work;
• scaling Mount Everest in a sock monkey hat;
• contemplating inner peace and their belly button lint;
• interacting with the outside world.

Yet instead, just like every reader that has found her/himself here, we have been sucked into the vortex that is the internets, an evil, foul beast made of tubes and LOLCats that destroys your very soul. And also your relationships.

...But mostly your soul.

In our effort to explicate the seriousness of this problem, we have spent a great deal of time and effort online researching the destructive power of the internet. Please read on for more insight into this very real problem:

• Time Management vs. The Internets - Researchers from the institute of Gishwhesian Studies have charted the addictive power of popular target sites.

• Division of Resources While Interacting with the Internet - Their multi-pronged study includes an exhaustive look at the breakdown of attention in subjects tasked with internet research.

• I Can Has Interwebz - Further explicating the dangers of the internet, our researchers consider the ramifications of productivity and internet usage with a case study focussing on one popular website.

Certainly, after reading and considering our exhaustive research, you too will understand the serious ramifications of the siren call of the internet.

Time Management vs. The Interwebs

The internet is a significant drain, not only on the work ethic of lowly underlings in the corporate structure, which ultimately impacts the yachting plans of important CEOs, but also on the daily life of the average bear individual.

The myriad websites -- funny and not funny, clean and not clean, free and not free -- cut into time allotted for simple tasks such as eating, sleeping and breathing.

As you can see from the following chart, Top Internet Researchers have evaluated some of the top timewasting sites and have accurately charted the hours individuals spend online when exposed to each available distraction.


As is immediately evident, when exposed to useful, practical sites like the local library, subjects' voluntary exposure is brief. Typically, they search for desired information, obtain it, log off, and go about their days. Yet when introduced to non-informative-only websites, these same subjects begin to exhibit addictive behaviours, spending more and more time on the internet and ignoring real-world consequences or obligations in quantities directly in relation to how addictive a particular site is.

In a shocking result, note that those subjects exposed to the site known as GISHWHES have not only managed to spend a full twenty-four hours continually plugged into the internet, but have actually managed to exceed the available time in one day, squeezing out more than the twenty-four hours worth of time available.

In response to this strange bending of space/time, a cross-disciplinary study with Physicists and Mathematicians has been proposed. The results are pending.

Division of Resources While Interacting with the Internet

Past the threat of interaction with particular target sites, the Gishwhesian Research Institute has successfully charted the patterns of time usage when subjects -- chosen from a wide range of social demographics -- are left to their own devices on the internet.

Each subject was tasked with a mid-level research project; they were to accumulate information on their chosen topic (something they were unfamiliar with, but which would not be overly taxing), and given two hours in which to complete their project. If they completed the task early, they were to notify the overseeing researcher, and the data collection would cease.


What became immediately apparent on conclusion of the data gathering stage was the significant pull of everything on the internet besides the subject's individual task. Even when consulting general encyclopedia sites like Wikipedia, their engagement with the site quickly moved from relevant research to chasing down only vaguely relevant, and then completely irrelevant links.

From there, the subjects moved on to other timewasting internet entertainments, including viewing cats on YouTube, Googling images of cats and perusing gifs of cats.

While this result appears to complicate our study, as cats may be seen as the underlying timewasting force, in our outlier subjects who avowed no interest in cats or kittens we still saw a similar pattern. Instead of cat videos, gifs and images, they were consumed with pictures of dogs, babies, or, in one notable case, funny videos of slightly moulding wedges of brie.

Even beyond pet, baby and cheese websites, these same subjects spent more time on other entertainment sites (including the IMDB) or internet-assisted creative endeavours (such as making charts for websites regarding the negative influence of the internet) than they did on their assigned tasks.

Initial mapping has shown that these patterns hold true even when applied to larger populations, although further study is underway.

I Can Has Interwebz

In an effort to better understand how each site pulls attention and focus away from more significant and meaningful pursuits (such as participating in international scavenger hunts or feeding your fish), Gishwhesian researchers chose one of the top timewasting sites through which to expose their subjects: I Can Has Cheezburger.


What is most significant is that without fail, the productivity of each subject took what is colloquially known as "a nosedive" as the exposure time lengthened.

There is hope, however, as the interruption of exposure by basic needs such as food and waste disposal did result in a brief return of productivity, although it was immediately reversed on resumption of site viewage. If it is possible to harness these natural breaks, the Gishwhesian Research Institute may be able to combat the significant damage the internet is doing to our lives and minds.