This trimester, I challenged myself to limit my social media usage to 1 hour a day and planned to use the rest of my free time to read. I took this on because I had noticed it was increasingly difficult to focus in my classes, and I would have trouble sitting still and completing my assignments in one go.
One of the reasons I spent more than an hour on social media every day was how easily accessible it was. It took no time for me to open TikTok or Instagram and scroll to get those dopamine hits. To ensure that this was no longer the case, I used a screen-time blocking app that required me to wait 15-30 seconds before I opened a social media app. The number of times a day I would open social media greatly decreased, as it wasn’t easily accessible anymore, and it forced me to ask myself whether there was a reason I was opening it.
Over the trimester I completed 3 books. This was much lower than I anticipated, as I expected that replacing social media with books would leave me a ton of time to read. However, the lower use of social media allowed me to spend more time on my daily tasks and assignments. By spending more time on work for my classes or clubs, my work was more thorough than it would have been before this challenge. I found it easier to focus for lengthier amounts of time, so the free time I thought I would have to read was spent doing school work. However, I still dedicated at least 30 minutes daily to uninterrupted reading. In addition to my longer attention span, it was easier to fall asleep at night and engage in conversation with my friends.
This experiment taught me how much more I could achieve by setting boundaries with social media. The hour I allowed myself every day felt more meaningful and fun because it was deliberate rather than mindless. I would hate to admit it to my parents, but it really is that damn phone.
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