Screen time and procrastination, hand in hand

 I was sitting in the lounge in Wallace the other day, waiting for class, and my professor walked in and asked everyone, “How are the phones doing?” I looked around the room to realize that every single student was looking at their phone, including myself. I began to notice it more and more as the day went on. As soon as people would sit down in class, they’d pull their phones out. As soon as the professor dismissed the class, phones were out. At one point, walking to Stockdale, I looked across the quad at all the people walking to lunch, and almost every single person had their face in their phone.

Curious to see how guilty I was of this same thing, I looked through the “screen time” on my iPhone. On average, I used my phone five hours and thirty-four minutes a day. Almost six hours a day, I was spending on my phone. I realized that I was picking up my phone over 200 times a day. The most used apps were Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, which means I was wasting almost three hours a day on social media.

Then I thought about the to-do list that has been sitting on my desk for the last two weeks. The to-do list that I never have time for. I thought to myself that if I held on to those six hours a day, then I wouldn’t even have a to-do list because all of those things would be done already. When I put those six hours to good use, it’s amazing how much stress falls off my shoulders. I encourage you to try it. Put your phone down & limit your screen time. It’s amazing what some diligence and proactivity can do for stress levels. Here’s a list of productive things that could easily be accomplished during the time we all spend staring at screens:

EMMA HILDEBRAND
Features Editor