Can you choose to do things that are not in your own best interest? Well, your best interest is different depending on what time frame you are looking at. When people say they are wasting time, it usually means they are choosing to do something that offers them a short term benefit, but may not offer them a chance to maximize long term best interest.
If I hang out on the internet now, I can have fun watching a show or talking to friends. If I study, I might get a better grade in the class and I might have a better GPA and I might get a better job and and I might make more money and I might be able to retire sooner or travel more or something else years down the road.
That’s a lot of “mights.” You can be certain you will enjoy your day on the internet. Virtually certain. You can’t have any sort of certainty about your sacrifice of internet time paying off with something a lot more valuable years down the road.
Delaying gratification is a proven way of “getting ahead” in life. If you buy into the notion of getting ahead as accumulating more, fancier stuff. Some people don’t buy into that. Some don’t believe they will actually get anything more useful by delaying gratification. Some choose not to even try. Some think they don’t need to delay gratification in order to do well enough.
For all those people, it isn’t wasting time. It is the best use of time. But we’re used to rewarding delayed gratification so we are prejudiced against doing things that we enjoy when we could be delaying gratification and earning…. whatever people seem to want.
Personally, I think it’s wrong to call it wasting time. I think we need to respect our choices more. For me, it’s not wasting time. It’s doing what I choose to do. I think being on the internet is much more valuable that people give it credit for, too. But that’s another question.