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Study Distractions and How to Avoid Them
“I find it impossible hard to study with my phone lying around”.
Upon walking into the student library to write to write this article I am met with vacant faces, lit up by smartphone torches. Despite exams looming and essays being due that simply will not write themselves, some students cannot resist the temptation to check what’s happening on social media or take a few ‘selfies’.
As most students will know, it is very easy to fall into the bottomless pit of procrastination. Whether they are avoiding revising for an exam, or pushing back essay deadlines until the last minute, study distractions are rife for students.
Paige Bell, 19, is in her first year of university at York St John University. She is studying ‘Economics and Finance’ and this means that she tasked with writing essays and also with preparation for various exams. Her revision schedule involves painstaking hours of reading textbooks and memorising large chunks of information.
She believes that her mobile phone is a major hindrance to her revision attempts. “I find impossible to study with my phone lying around. I see notifications from Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram and all of a sudden I’ve spent an hour just staring at my phone”.
Paige feels that the best way for her to avoid distracting herself is to switch off her phone. “If I don’t switch off my phone I won’t get my work done, it’s as simple as that.” “Sometimes I’ll give my phone to my boyfriend for a few hours as well so that I can’t give in to temptation”.
As Paige is a University student there come other distractions than mobile phones that present themselves. “Nightclubs are really cheap for students in this area and most people would rather be out enjoying themselves than in the library.”
There are other study distractions that are unavoidable such as working a part-time job, which is essential for many university students to survive. Therefore, it is important to balance free time with study time, otherwise revision does seem like a tedious task. When revision turns into a miserable slog, distractions such as mobile phones and social time present themselves and temptation becomes a lot harder to fight.
Some students also have hobbies that require hours of dedication. These hobbies should be seen as a time-out from study as this allows for distancing between work and social time.
For the next two weeks, Paige will be trialling a new revision method, with the aim of optimising her revision time. She will be cutting down her hours spent revising which should mean that she is concentrating on ‘focused revision’ which is meant to boost memory performance. This technique also works because
Experts have given conflicting reports in how to optimise revision time for students. For example, Cindy Wooldridge of LearningScientists.Org has suggested that listening to music can help the brain to focus on tasks whereas David Cutler of Edutopia.Org is a firm believer that studying whilst listening to music can impair memory performance.
Ultimately, the best way for a student to revise comes from trying different methods and finding which way works best for them.
Two weeks have passed, and I have met with Paige again to discuss how her studying is going.
“I sometimes forget my phone is there now.”
I ask her if her new method of revision is working for her. “I think it is definitely having a positive effect on my revision”, she says.
Paige has been trying a new method to help her to revise effectively. “I have been to revise in short intervals.” “If I spend 30 minutes concentrating on studying a piece of text and then let myself have a break to go on my phone and get rid of the urge to scroll down my phone.” Paige also told me that she was also trialling the same method to try and complete her essays.
I also ask if she is still struggling with the urge to waste time on her phone. “I think that allowing myself to go on my phone for short bursts has helped me to control my time spent on it”. When I ask her about how her work is going, she says “my essay writing is a lot better now that I’m in control of my revision time”.
Paige has also decreased the number of hours that she spends revising for exams, “I’m definitely more focused now when I’m revising, and I take in a lot more information.” When I ask her if she misses her phone when revising she laughs and says, “Not at all, I sometimes forget that my phone is there now.” When asked why she says, “I actually enjoy revision more now that it isn’t as long.” “Now that I don’t feel like I have to do it, it makes me want to do it”, she adds.
When asked what advice she would give to students who are struggling to revise, Paige says “try different methods and find out what works best for you.” Furthermore, she says, “If you’re getting distracted from your work often, then it is obvious that you have to change your revision pattern because it obviously is not working.”