The Internet is our guilty pleasure. Yes, it has a wealth of knowledge but instead of tapping into it, we usually procrastinate by spending our time on useless content. Here’s a thing about us. We don’t have an infinite amount of time. We won’t live forever. So, the amount of time we have here may as well be on things that make us smart rather than guilty. That’s why I will be listing Top 5 places to spend time online that will make you smarter.

1. Freakonmics

When I was in the first semester of my Information Systems degree. Two subjects captured my attention, microeconomics, and psychology. What if these two were combined? I started reading a book called “Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything ” at that time. The book explains how microeconomic principles can be used to decide how drug cartels operate. Or how a homeless person can afford an expensive pair of headphones?

Later, I found out that they have a website and a podcast that follow the book on uncovering hidden side of everything from the perspective of economics and psychology.

You can access their website by clicking here. And their youtube channel is embeded below.

Freakonomics Radio – How to Save $1 Billion Without Even Trying

2. XKCD comics

The tagline of XKCD comics is “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language”. It is the brainchild of the author Randall Munroe. XKCD comics is really witty and thought-provoking at times. What if someone threw a baseball at the speed of light? What if we made a wall with all the elements of periodic tables? What if all the data that Google has was stored on punched cards? XKCD comics strives to answer questions in a really fun engaging comics.

Ted Talk by Randall Munroe

3. Big Think

Big Think is a web portal that interviews pioneers in their field. They also write science and technology related articles. You can access their website by clicking here. I really love Michio Kaku’s inteviews and presentations done with them.

The Science of Happiness, Motivation, and Meaning





4. Medium

Medium is a blogging platform that consists of both amateur and professional bloggers of their respective fields. Medium works on a Freemium model where you need to pay for certain content and you don’t for certain. Medium articles range from politics, sociology to technlogy.

You may click here to access Medium.

5. Quora

Remember yahoo answers days? The quality of answers on yahoo answers used to be utter garbage. Quora is a question-answer platform where the quality of answers is really good. The kind of people that use Quora and the way Quora makes you answer the question has led it to become a wealth of knowledge. Best selling authors, scientists, programmers all can found in this platform.

You may click here to access Quora.