A study by Common Sense Media proves that 42% of students have phones by age 10, 71% by age 12, and 91% by age 14. Compared to other electric gadgets, mobile phones are easily accessible and are coupled with various services to assist students. Besides efficient communication with peers, mobile phones are computerized with search engines, calculators, and other educational applications to assist students with their academic lives.
However, due to early exposure to mobile phones and the frequency of their use, most students suffer from phone addiction, which subsequently deters their academic progress. To cope with phone addiction, students can employ detox techniques to ensure the healthy use of mobile phones.
What is a digital detox?
A digital detox involves consciously reducing the time spent on digital devices. Digital detox reduces time spent on social media platforms, computers, and mobile devices. The detox may be done for a few days or even months, allowing one to tame the time spent on digital devices.
Within the digital detox time, digital activities are highly restricted. The detox involves refraining from social media, video games, TV programs and movies, and excessive messaging.
Why do an online detoxification?
Online detoxes have several reasons that enable their propagation. For students, one of the most significant reasons for a digital detox is improving concentration on school work by minimizing time spent on phones and maximizing study time.
Reasons for digital detox include lowering stress levels, increasing focus, better social interactions, improving health conditions and sleep patterns, and creating an effective work-life balance.
FAQ – What steps can students take for phone detox?
Many students are committed to breaking their phone addiction but are uninformed on possible steps to take in a successful phone detox. This article seeks to offer ways in which students can do phone detox. The following are examples of steps to be followed by students to effectively manage through a phone detox.
1. Make a constructive schedule.
Schedules are very on-brand for students and ensure proper time management. Schedules and timetables ensure that all time is wisely used and accounted for, thus improving the students' efficacy. Most students spend their time on their phones due to inactivity and boredom, which can be countered through a schedule.
Phone detox may involve an engrossing schedule allowing students to account for their day and plan their time. Schedules also ensure proper planning, thus ensuring that students manage all pending work before deadlines, leaving them spare time, which can be spent on digital devices after completing prioritized work on the schedule.
2. Make substitutions.
The science of a vacuum getting filled with air describes the science of human activities. The removal or minimization of an activity subsequently leads to its swap with something else. Most students engage in digital activities such as online games, social media, and chatting with friends to combat boredom.
However, phone detox involves cutting back the time spent on digital activities, and for students to succeed, there must be a substitution for these activities. Students may pick new hobbies to fill the time spent on social media. Other alternatives include engaging in sports, writing journals, studying, reading books, or connecting with family and friends. Finding engrossing and captivating activities makes the substitution much more effective.
3. How to do a phone detox -Limit specified apps through phone settings.
A study by Business of Apps proves that TikTok is the most popular application, with a download history of 672 million in 2022. This case can be easily justified without the need for a study since TikTok has put students in a chokehold with an average screen time of 95 minutes daily, with users opening the app at least eight times daily. TikTok is just an example of how crucial it is to limit certain applications on phone settings.
Minimizing the screen time used on various apps reduces students' addiction, thus ensuring effective use of time. Depending on the reliance on certain apps, students may control their consumption by setting app time limits or taking extra steps such as uninstalling time-consuming and unnecessary apps.
4. Downgrade your phone.
The 21st century is the most connected era yet based on its connectivity to the Internet and digitization. The average mobile phone has plenty of applications and access to the Internet, which creates ease for the use of all possible applications and services. Since most students are spoilt for choice based on their choice of phones, phone detox may be taxing to them.
Downgrading your phone creates an easy technique to ensure phone detoxing. This is because it forcefully limits the students to a handful of services and applications that are crucial and directly beneficial to the students. Downgrading your phone allows emergency services such as phones, text messages, and bonus applications like WhatsApp.
5. Turn off mobile phone notifications.
The human senses are very receptive to the environment and allow constant communication, thus influencing a fitting reaction from the body. In most cases, it is almost unavoidable to react to the senses. Mobile notifications allow students to track the occurrences within phones, thus ensuring no information is missed.
While in study time, mobile notifications are very distracting and usually divert attention to the phones, reducing the concentration that would otherwise have been on studies. Muting your mobile phone or turning off the notifications reduces the time spent on phones and fully diverts the attention that would have been otherwise spent on phone operations.
6. Take breaks from your phone.
Medic studies have emphasized the detrimental effects of spending too much time on mobile phones. Health conditions and sleep patterns, especially among students, keep plummeting due to excessive use of mobile devices. Essay writing service provides academic writing help including custom writing about effects of increased phone usage on students, hence proving the pressing need to moderate the time spent on digital devices to reduce stress levels and fear of missing out.
Taking breaks from social media is a constructive method of mitigating the constant use of phones. A digital detox can help students to interact with friends and improve social interactions. Practicing this measure for some time can convert it into a habit and increase its effectiveness in ensuring phone detox.
7. Buy an alarm clock.
Phones have so many advantages and have aided in improving the quality of life by availing an array of services under a small device. However, the efficiency of the mobile phone is often abused. Most students are culprits of checking into social media minutes after switching off their phone alarm clocks. By embarking on their day on the phone, the day progresses on the same habit, which becomes tedious to break. Phone alarm clocks also wreck sleep patterns due to the increased temptation of using the phone before sleeping. To avoid this, students should invest in an alarm clock. This helps reduce the time before and after waking up, thus trimming the reliance on mobile phones.
8. Connect with nature.
Nature is very therapeutic and creates a calming effect. It is rare for people to experience the beauty of nature in its most original sense due to the countless distractions endured. Too much time spent on the phones reduces the chances of connecting with nature. While on phone detox, students can use the time to connect with nature through walks or hikes. Leaving phones behind during nature walks allows them to minimize their stress levels as the encounter with nature is a literal breath of fresh air to blow out all existing problems.
9. Keep your phone out of reach.
Having your mobile phone within the vicinity is one of the most probable ways of getting temped and distracted with your phone. Study time can be mentally cumbersome, and the constant urge to grab your phone for a quick social media break is almost unavoidable.
Keeping your phone out of reach improves your work concentration and propagates improved understanding without distractions. Having your phone in airplane mode could also help reduce distractions while studying.
Conclusion
Digital detox is important for students since it allows them to major in academics while limiting possible distractions and improving their overall performance. The above-listed steps show students how to phone detox, and with constant commitment, phone addiction among students can be broken.
