Turn Your Phone into a Tool, Not a Distraction In College

Less Distraction, More Action.

In Today’s Email:

🧠 How I Fought My Phone and Won
📵 My Story On Screen Time
💡How To Make It Work
🔍 Other Methods
⏱️ What To Do With Free Time?

🧠 How I Fought My Phone and Won

Every minute you spend scrolling is a minute you'll never get back. Over a lifetime, that adds up to decades wasted. Let's start at the obvious. You’re here because you know you spend too much time on your phone and want to change that. That’s a great first step! But have you ever stopped to consider just how much time your screen is costing you? Take a moment to think about your daily screen time. Is it 4, 7, or even 9 hours? I once met a student whose screen time averaged 13 hours a day. Assuming that you live to 80 years old:

4 hours/day means 13.3 years of your life gone.
7 hours/day means 23.3 years total of your life staring at a screen.
9 hours/day means 30.1 years total that you will never get back.

I also don't have to tell you that screen time is having a negative effect on the brain. A study done by Neophytou et al. found that "Over 2 hours a day of screen time was associated with decreased performance on thinking and language tasks in children, and those exposed to seven or more hours of screen time a day showed significant differences in thinning of the cortex, effecting cognitive functions, and memory" (Neophytou et al., 2019 ). Another study revealed that students in a phone free classrooms outperformed those who had access to their devices even if they refrained from using them. The mere presence of a phone is enough to disrupt concentration (Glass, A. L., & Kang, M. 2018). Let’s be honest, how often does your phone buzz in your pocket? Even a quick glance at a notification breaks your focus pulling you away from your goals.

📵 My Story On Screen Time

My war on screentime started during my senior year of high school. I started by deleting all my social media accounts. Snapchat was the main way I communicated with my friends. I understand people will be scared that they won't be able to connect with their friends. But if your friends truly wanted to hang out or talk with you, they would call or text. Once you delete social media, you will realize most people don't care about you as much as you thought. Even my friends created a group chat over text messages because I didn't have social media anymore. True friends will make an effort to stay connected.

Cutting social media was a game changer, but I quickly realized my phone still had plenty of other distractions. This was another issue, because I love watching YouTube. I grew up watching it and that made it a hard habit to break. YouTube isn't entirely bad. A lot of the work I do requires me to watch YouTube videos. The issue is using it when I am eating or using it instead of working. So I downloaded an app blocker on my phone for Safari. This worked to an extent. However, I would disable it and then keep it off. So I downloaded three app blockers. This worked terrifically. It would take me almost 5 minutes just to get through all my blockers so I would end up never turning them off. But when certain services needed me to use my mobile browser I couldn't. Like my work during the summer. Many blockers required expensive subscriptions or deactivated after a set period.

I then experimented with turning my iPhone into a dumb phone. I downloaded and paid for Dumb Phone (dp). But it is limited. For one this is just a fancy widget launcher. It doesn't really change much of the internals of your phone. Some apps I needed for daily use weren't on their list of supported apps. For example, Hevy, my workout tracking app wasn't nor was my bank. If the app isn't supported, then you have to request it.

I stumbled upon Assistive Access for iPhone. It turns your iPhone into an almost true dumbphone with more options. Now the only issue I have run into is that the alarm function doesn't work. That means if you set a timer to wake up at 6 AM, it won't ring it shuts itself off. Also, my Apple Watch will alert me to texts but not alerts from Structured - Daily Planner. I use that app to time block and plan out my days. So if I had set up to be alerted that I had a meeting at 12:30 it won't do it.

I want you to realize that with all my solutions came problems. That is expected when you are upheaving a large part of your life. You have to decide what it is worth to you. The discomfort I get from people making fun of how I do things pales in comparison with the amount of time they are wasting in their lives. There should also be friction when you change your life. Don't expect the transition to be seamless and work perfectly. Friction is a good thing that is stopping you from your bad habits like scrolling through social media. When I turn my phone onto Assistive Access, then I cannot end Spotify on my phone while driving. For those of you without Spotify Premium, you understand this. When you get an ad you can swipe the app up to end it which keeps your music going. I do this while driving which isn't safe! However with Assistive Access on it keeps me from doing this reducing my chance of killing someone or getting into a car accident. Just a small adjustment will change your life. Discomfort is a part of growth.

💡How To Make It Work

Before jumping into extreme solutions, start with the basics. If you root up too much of your life then it may become overwhelming causing you to quit. If you're going to run a marathon, then you need to be able to show up to the starting line.

Track your screen time. Turn on the screen time feature on your phone. At the end of the week, it should give you an average of how much time you spend on your phone a day. Seeing it should cause a reaction. You are spending too much time on your phone. First, you must acknowledge the issue and be reminded of it. Awareness is the first step to change.

This is my current screen time.
Delete social media apps. You can do them all or once a week. Save important contacts beforehand, then fully delete your accounts. Do this for a couple of weeks to a month and note what happens. Were you able to stay off social media? What did you reach for instead? For some people, they will turn to other devices such as a TV or laptop. That is okay! Your brain is just looking for a dopamine source. It will level out over time.

Just get rid of it all. Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash
Delete any games on your phone. This includes even if you have memories attached to them. Once during a Bible study, a guy talked about how he was attached to a city builder game. It was what got him into his major of architecture. The app has served its purpose! But what got you here isn't going to get you to the next level.
Think about what you’re losing. All the things you're giving up when you use social media or your phone. Hanging out with friends, working on life projects, being active, and just general silence. Once you have gone a couple of months without social media or games, then transition into a dumb phone. To set up your iPhone for assistive access watch this video by Apple.

Try Assistive Access for a couple of weeks and note the problems you run into. You are likely going to have to think about solutions for this. For me, if I don't have an alarm, then I am not getting up. That is why I now have a physical alarm clock. This also helped reduce my screen time as I am not looking at my phone for an alarm.

🔍 Other Methods

Let's say you tried turning your phone into a dumb phone, and it just wasn't for you. Or maybe you want to further decrease the time spent on your phone. I got you!

One of the best ways is to leave your phone in your backpack during class. It won’t vibrate in your pocket, and you’ll break the habit of reaching for it out of boredom. Let your brain be bored. This will make the lecture and class more interesting. The next dopamine source for your brain will be the teacher or assignment. I would also do this when you go to work. Unless you need your phone just leave it in the car. Your first few days might be discomforting but that is normal! 99% of the time you don't need to know what is going on immediately. Humans were not designed to be constantly interrupted.
Disable all notifications that aren't important. Things like Canvas, Mail, friend group chats, group me, etc. The only notifications I have are for my daily planner app along with my contacts. Everything else can wait trust me.
Recognize workarounds your brain uses. One thing you might notice while doing this is that your brain is really good at getting past barriers. For example, you might delete all your social media apps but still access them through Safari. Another is getting to Facebook through Messenger which is what I did! From this I would recommend disabling Safari on your phone as well. You can then easily turn it back on if you need it. This just adds an extra layer to stop you from being on your phone.

⏱️ What To Do With Free Time?

Once you’ve reduced screen time, the biggest challenge is filling that gap. This is an issue I find people don't address. It will take some time to truly break the habit of reaching for your phone when bored. You likely have noticed you will go into your phone to watch TV or scroll social media. They aren't there, so what the hell do you do? You then might look at your mail apps or Canvas. But that only last a few minutes. How you fill this time will determine if your truly successful or not. You need to find things you enjoy to do in your free time. That could be painting, writing, reading, Legos, etc. For me, I read during my downtime.

From the book Atomic Habits, make your new habits obvious, attractive, easy, and rewarding. For example, I have a treadmill in my living room as a constant reminder that I should do my 30 minutes. I made it enjoyable by watching a movie while walking. It is easy because I don't have to go to a gym especially when its cold outside. I make it rewarding by tracking the days I use my treadmill, along with the exercise as my dopamine boost. I would follow this same format with your new habits.

Closing Notes

Scholars For Dollars is sent weekly on Mondays. If this was helpful then refer a friend to this newsletter. Thank you for reading my newsletter! 😊

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Lastly, we will end on the quote of the day.

“Don't be a dream killer be a nightmare killer.” — Dave Ramsey

Until next week,

Crayton Koranda