Ever since the new semester, I have been trying out a new method of studying, staying off my phone the whole day until I get all my work done. It sounds like a no-brainer, I’m sure many of you have heard this advice before. But if you were wondering if staying off your phone might improve your grades, the short answer is: Yes! The long answer: sort of…
I’ll start by saying that I placed a time limit on all of my social media and any other apps that I thought might be distracting, and I’ll be honest it was hard to resist the urge to just bypass the “Time’s Up” notification and keep scrolling on Tiktok, but I was committed to this experiment. I also did not go on any streaming service on my laptop unless I was done with all I had to do. And the results so far are shocking!
The first thing I will point out is that I had so much time to hang out with my friends, do homework, take some exercise classes, and overall enjoy more activities on campus. I had never realized how much time is consumed just by being on my phone and procrastinating. It felt so good to have such an abundance of time that I ended up finishing my work much earlier than I used to, so that I could relax and watch Netflix for the rest of the day.
I also realized that I felt like I could sleep much quicker. Instead of laying in bed scrolling before trying for hours to fall asleep, I fell asleep much faster than before. This is because of all the blue light that our eyes usually get from our phone which can cause problems in sleeping, along with eye strain, and even headaches. This helped my grades as I felt refreshed and ready for class every morning rather than feeling like I never slept enough.
In conclusion, a phone detox definitely helped my grades and efficiency when it comes to school, but not on its own. It also took discipline and commitment on my part to stick to this promise I made to myself and report my results to other fellow students. I recommend anybody struggling with getting their work done on time to try this out, and let me know how it goes!
Good luck on midterms!