Taking the time to focus and think about how I use technology in my day to day life has been a fascinating experience. As I own a flip phone (yes, they still exist and are great!) most of my access to the internet and technology is done through the use of my Samsung Tablet. The most common apps I use on my tablet are YouTube, Noteshelf, GoogleDocs, Facebook Messenger, Discord, and CamScanner. For this week I wished to track how much time was spent on my tablet on separate apps and found that by going into the “Digital Wellbeing and parental controls” tab in the settings menu, my tablet automatically records this data for me and stores it in a week by week manner. In the picture below I have highlighted my Thursday hours, as it was the longest time spent on the tablet for the week. This makes sense as Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday are my heavy work days, while Wednesday is spent more with readings and pen and paper work. Fridays are spent hanging out with friends , and Saturdays I spend working my afternoon to evening shift so they have the smallest screen time present. My tablet also places the time spent under the categories “Video”, “Games”/“Social”, and “Productivity and Finance”.
Most of my entertainment and hobby research, such as my learning project for this course, fall under the “Video” category as I often found myself on YouTube as it was quick and easy to access, and my recommendations are currently filled with art related channels. This week I focused on how I browsed around YouTube and noticed that if I got sidetracked and began scrolling through YouTube shorts, either 2 minutes or over an hour would go by. Knowing this now I plan to avoid scrolling mindlessly through YouTube shorts and potentially avoid them altogether as I always felt like I had wasted my time after finishing scrolling. I also found that YouTube was part of my night time routine where I would get ready for bed, then watch up to an hour of videos to wind down before falling asleep. This wind down time on YouTube could also be replaced by watching an episode of whatever TV show I’m interested in before bed. For this reason I have always used “nightime” mode on my tablet and devices which shuts off all blue light that the tablet uses so I minimize how much it keeps me up.
Almost all of my “Social” time came from contacting and conversing with friends over facebook messenger, or through using Discord with friends. I don’t have any social media accounts other than Facebook and Discord, nor do I have any interest at the moment as I would rather not add another source of distraction into my life when YouTube does that enough. I believe that “Games” includes social, but probably include some of the more underused apps that didn’t fall into the other categories.
“Productivity and Finance” is time spent on apps designed for work, and I think that Noteshelf falls under this category. While this category isn’t in use often, its larger sections come from Tuesdays and Thursdays where I have two classes in person where I need to take notes, and Wednesday where I have one in person class where I take notes. This time ranges from one to two hours as the amount of time I spend taking notes depends largely on that day’s lecture content. I used my computer whenever I use GoogleDocs this week so it does not appear on my tablet’s charts. However I spend at least 5 hours a week (or around one hour a day) on GoogleDocs as I use it to create drafts for my blog posts in this class, and for written assignments in other classes. CamScanner is a very useful tool I have used throughout my university career where I can take pictures of my physical work and it converts it into a pdf document for submission. I often do math homework with pen and paper, so while the app may not have a lot of runtime it is one of the most opened apps on my tablet and is incredibly useful.
After the week was over, I found most days average 5 hours of screen time, with a high of 10 hours, and lows of 3 hours, creating a weekly average of 6 hours a day. During the school week, at least half of that screentime is being used productively for the purpose of school, while the other half is for entertainment.
For distractions that come from technology, some of my evenings have been spent playing through Baldur’s Gate 3 (a new video game) with my older brother when we both have free time. Some strategies I employ to prevent technology from enabling my procrastination is to designate the evening as time for entertainment, leaving the morning and afternoon hours for school work and productivity. By separating my day into “work” and “entertainment” sections, it becomes easier for me to stay focused on my work as it has become routine for me. If the morning and afternoon proved to be not enough time to finish what I was working on, I will either continue working until it is done, or take a few hour break in the evening to relax before staying up late to finish the work on time.