Maeve Catherine

I have always connected my low attention span to my phone addiction but have never thought about the root of the addiction.

Before deleting Tik Tok last week I would have fully blamed my inability to focus on social media algorithms. My phone screen time data still reflects a daily average of five hours and twelve minutes, however that time is notably during times that I have carved out to do my class assignments.

The Council for Evidence-Based Psychiatry and Johann Hari worked together in creating a scientific opinion poll about attention.

48% of people identified stress as a reason for problems focusing.

As I analyzed my screen time in connection with my carved out homework periods the similarities were disappointing. On Monday, I had five and a half hours after class until a staff meeting to complete three goals.

• Finish Defend the Den mock ups
• Finish writing my critic paper
• Eat dinner

By the time my staff meeting begun, I had completed two of the three tasks. My critic paper sat open on my laptop, with a paragraph and a half written, as I binge-scrolled on Facebook and Instagram to avoid the stress I get when writing papers. Even as I write this I have picked my phone up a total of 24 times to distract myself. I now have a work focus mode set up on my phone to prevent use of scrolling but I am still adapting to the enforcement.

Make it 27 times…

Avoiding stressors decreases my stress in the moment, but the stress then builds up resulting in burn out. The focus modes on my phone will help me this semester in focusing on working through stressful moments instead of ignoring them.