Before you begin reading this piece, I’m going to propose a challenge: silence your phone and set it aside; out of sight, out of mind. Using your mobile device to view the article? You are exempt from the challenge, but a different one is in place: make up for it later today. Turn your phone off during dinner, activate airplane mode when you hit the gym tomorrow morning, spend 30 minutes 3G, iMessage and Instagram free. For the next 5 minutes allow yourself to be unreachable, uninterrupted and unplugged.
This summer, between working 3 jobs in attempt to cover the price of rent, and trying my hardest to sneak in a few beach days here and there, I spent a lot of quality time with my…phone. Sneaking in a text or two while waitressing, desperately searching for service on the beach, or frantically google-ing “how to make a 3 year old fall asleep” while on my latest babysitting gig, my phone was rarely more than an arms length away. How often was it turned OFF?? Never.
I’m sure this is this case for most college women like myself, constantly updating twitter, instgramming our lunch, group texting our roommates. We are always “plugged in.” But at what point does it become too much?
For me, the time is now. With the start of the fall semester fast approaching, I know exactly what to expect; emails from professors, work-study jobs starting up again, meetings to attend, friends to meet up with and keep track of. It all happens so fast; we get back into the swing of things right away and at full speed.
And so I got to thinking, what can I do to lighten my load, what can I control that will make my semester a little more simplified?
Although I can’t drop a few classes or become less involved in extracurricular activities, what I can do, and what we can all do is “unplug.” In an infographic titled “Generation Mobile” created by HackerCollege.com, the ways in which cell phones shape the lives of college students are detailed in bright illustrations. The results? Not so shocking.
94% of respondents said that they send texts every day, 74% said they sleep next to their phones, in fear of missing important notifications and 60% admitted to sometimes feeling “addicted” to their mobile device. Although it’s true that a smart phone can seemingly make our lives “easier,” is it always necessary? When asked “how often do you use your phone during class hours,” only 14% of respondents replied “never.” The bottom line is that students love their phones, to the point where that hand-held device almost takes the place of that 5-fingered contraption located at the end of your right arm.
A recent article published by the Washington Post declared, “today’s teens spend more than 7.5 hours a day consuming media.” Imagine, you are only awake for about 15 hours on a normal day. How often do you climb into bed after a long night in the PLC thinking how nice it would be to have just a few more hours in the day? How many of those 7.5, media-centric hours are totally and completely necessary?
So again, I challenge you to unplug.
Have a full morning of classes from 8:30 to 11:15? Turn your phone off during class hours. Pick your head up as you walk from class to class, enjoy the view, and say hi to the friends you’re passing, rather than text the ones who are still in bed. Your time on Hawk Hill is going to fly by, I promise you. If you’re not already experiencing this, like myself and the rest of the class of 2014, consider yourself lucky. Don’t let the semesters, the free periods and the basketball games on Hawk Hill get lost in 200 twitter feeds, 800 Facebook statuses, and millions of emails. Look up from your phone and cherish the beautiful campus that surrounds you.
Spending an hour or two in Hagan before class? Turn off your phone and break out your iPod (that old thing??), while you have a (disconnected) go at the treadmill. Read a book, flip through a Cosmo or get ahead on your English homework. Make yourself 100% unreachable. Whatever blouse your roommate can’t seem to find back at the apartment, can wait until after your 5-mile work out.
Set a time each night where you will stop texting, stop tweeting, and stop updating your Facebook page. Try anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour before you go to bed. Don’t check your email or scroll through Pinterest but instead spend time with your roommates, catch up on Grey’s Anatomy, or plan your outfit for the following day. Dependent on your phone’s 8am wake up call? Utilize “airplane mode,” a great feature that will help you pay attention in class, complete your homework more efficiently, and maybe even sleep better at night.
Unplug for a few hours each day and regain those 7.5 hours that the media is so harshly stealing form you. Chances are these simple changes will give you back the control you may have lost last semester or the carefree days that the summer months teased you with. They may even give you back that little something called “free time” that you seem to have lost somewhere between now and your very first year on Hawk Hill.
Link to HackerCollege Infographic: http://edudemic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/HC_generation_mobile.gif