Put your phone away! Try #reallife ... at least while you're revising
I hate to say it but exam season is upon us. If you’re feeling like you do more procrastination than revision try and see if you can cut your phone out of your life for a while (it will help you in the long run – trust me.) We can all be the source of our own problems sometimes and I reckon I could get about 10 times more work done if I stopped checking Twitter or Instagram every five minutes. But it is when I’m trying to work I begin to realise that I am addicted to my phone.
Ask yourself this question. Could you go a full week without your phone or tablet? That would mean no Internet, no Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram or Twitter. When you think about it, it’s actually harder than you think. If your parents are anything like mine they’ll be constantly reminding you about ‘talking face-to-face’ with other people and that they ‘never had those things’ when they were younger which will then be followed by a lengthy commentary of their teenage life. But after going out to town the other day I began to see their point.
Everywhere I looked I was surrounded by rectangular screens flashing notifications up left right and centre. There were groups of teenage girls trying to get the perfect angle for their Snapchat story or boys filming each other ‘for the bant.’ Even when my family and I sat down for lunch every table had some form of phone or tablet present and to be honest I found it really sad.
The world of hashtagging and the obsession over likes have taken over our lives. Talking face-to-face with one another over lunch without mobile phones is slowly becoming something of the past. Our generation has become addicted to the Internet and in some extreme causes people are gradually losing touch with reality. People don't do anything about real life problems anymore; they just sit behind their screens and watch the events unfold rather than being part of solution. Of course social media has many positives like spreading the word and making people aware of current situations but I believe there needs to be a balance.
The power of the Internet and social media is very strong and it very easily becomes addictive. Phones are a huge distraction and it's so easy to end up on it for hours when you only meant to quickly check your messages; I know I’m not alone with this problem. So my advice to you would be just simply turn it off! I am aware of how simple this sounds but it does work and, if your willpower isn't up to the job, get your mum or a sibling to temporarily hang on to it for a while. Start for small time periods and then build it up. I am not saying that phones and tablet are evil, I just think it would benefit everyone if we used them a little less.
You will be surprised how much you can get done without a phone glued to your hands. Just think ahead to when you get your results back and consider if you would be kicking yourself when you find out that you didn’t get the grade you wanted because you had to watch that vine or retweet that joke. Is liking that photo really more important than your education?
Alex Fowler