I’ve installed a plugin that claims to create automatic hyperlinks when you type or cut/past them into your posts so that you don’t have to highlight text and use the “Link” button in the editor.
Important: All these plugins are written by kids in their basements (hyperbolic generalization, but mostly true) and most are completely unsupported, so I don’t know what effects this could have on the normal functionality of the site or the post editor.
The following were just entered as text, and the “Link” button was not used. They should show up as hyperlinks, or “light up”, as J prefers.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/sem-autolink-uri/