When Ari Mann, a freshman in Education, needs a distraction from homework, the first thing she clicks on is not Facebook. Instead, she stumbles.

“StumbleUpon is the whole internet specifically for you,” Mann said. “You can choose from a set of likes and then click ‘stumble” to find videos, pictures and articles that relate to your likes.”

Launched in June 2007, the discovery engine uses positive and negative user ratings to find websites that pertains to the users’ search topics and interests.

With over 12 million users as of November 2010, it is one of the fastest growing member-based sites on the web.

For Arielle Benson, a junior in AHS, the spontaneity of StumbleUpon is what makes the website the ideal disruption from writing papers.

“It’s the awesome stuff that shows up that I would have no reason to search for,” Benson said. “I would never search for ‘simulated swimming pool with room inside,’ but the website took me to the webpage of the artist who created that installation, and it was awesome.”

Despite serendipitously stumbling upon random websites, Benson said she narrows down her search topics.

“But even that is a list of twenty topics ranging from ‘bizarre/oddities’ to ‘videogames,’” Benson said.

Not all searches though, are meaningless. Through StumbleUpon, Benson has picked-up new leisure pursuits and ideas.

“I learned of quilling, an art where people cut small strips of paper and twirl them,” Benson said. “They then make intricate designs with these little rolls of paper. I’d never have the patience for it, but the end result looks beautiful.”

Using the discovery search engine, Benson and her friends found inspiration for their Halloween costumes.

“My friend found a video through StumbleUpon of people dressed up as Yip Yips, a pair of puppets from Sesame Street that come from Mars,” Benson said. “We thought it was funny so we replicated the costumes.”

Lydia Wallbaum, a senior in Media who discovered StumbleUpon a year ago through the social content website Digg, said she also uses the discovery engine to search for old hobbies and find new interests.

“When I had to throw my friend a baby shower over (Thanksgiving) break, I just browsed by bookmarking recipes for the menu,” Wallbaum said. “Through StumbleUpon, I have become interested in crafts — making things instead of just buying things.”

Other stumbles have become sources of entertainment when feeling bored.

“I’ve discovered this trend called ‘rage comics.’ They all involve a FML element, where they end with a hilarious angry face of the main character,” Wallbaum said.

From stumbling upon random topics such as rage comics to finding funny blogs such as “Hyperbole and a Half,” a blog about a random girl who draws hilariously bad cartoons depicting her life, Wallbaum said it has become a habit to send the links she stumbles upon to her friends.

“I love finding clever things I can share with my friends,” she said. “They all think I’m a web genius.”

Wallbaum, in fact, became so engrossed with the deal savings she found via StumbleUpon that she decided to share it with the public.

“I’ve come across so many websites that teach you how to get things for free or feature special deals in your city, that it inspired me to create a Twitter page for U of I students highlighting deals on campus called twitter.com/uofideals,” Wallbaum said.

Wallbaum said the site could improve by making the sharing process easier.

“I wish there was a more social element to the site, so I could better share my finds with friends instead of copying links to send to their Facebook pages,” Wallbaum said.

As for the procrastination effect that StumbleUpon can have when one is trying to study, Wallbaum and her peers said while they realize it can be a distraction, they ‘stumble’ with the acknowledgement they are not on the discovery engine to complete their homework in the first place.

Zach Rosenfeldt, a junior in LAS who uses the site several times a day when he is not busy, said the important thing was knowing when to browse StumbleUpon.

“The only thing that can distract someone from their work is the person themselves,” Rosenfeldt said. “StumbleUpon should only be used when you aren’t doing anything else.”