Hello, hi, hey, welcome back etc…

Okay, I’m going to dive straight into this one. Screen time: I spend A LOT of time on my phone. I won’t even try to deny it, I am guilty of multiple counts of mobile phone over-use.

 

So basically, I always have my phone on me, if I’m not with my friends or family, then I’m talking to them on SnapChat or WhatsApp. If I’m bored, then I’m browsing social media, watching Netflix or checking out what’s up on YouTube. I wasn’t going to bother downloading any apps to track my screen time because quite frankly I don’t think any of the ones available on the AppStore are accurate, at least not the free ones anyway. But I did it, I had nothing to lose so I bit the bullet and I downloaded RealizD.

It looks good on the surface, it has lots of features and different options to show you variations of the data it supposedly collects. As I said above however, it’s not entirely accurate. For the first day or two that I used it, it tried to tell me I had only spent 42minutes looking at my screen per day. I cannot, in good conscience, pretend that I was pleasantly surprised or that there was even the slightest possibility that this could be true. I knew full well the information was completely incorrect. The app allows you to adjust the data of the previous days if you so wish and so I began timing myself as much as I could to paint a more accurate picture of my screen time and then updating the times manually myself.

I’ve never been the kind of person to enjoy my own company. I don’t like being on my own or in my own head, a trait I hope to one day outgrow but for now it’s my reality. Having constant contact with my friends and family helps me to feel less alone even if I am not physically in the presence of another. That being said, I do think that having that safety net has made me feel less of a need to physically interact with anyone and then when the time comes to go out or meet up for coffee I can find myself feeling anxious. An online journal I found actually explained what’s happening here.

The research started from the assumption that one of the major motives driving individuals’ Internet use is to relieve psychosocial problems (e.g., loneliness, depression). This study showed that individuals who were lonely or did not have good social skills could develop strong compulsive Internet use behaviors resulting in negative life outcomes (e.g., harming other significant activities such as work, school, or significant relationships) instead of relieving their original problems. Such augmented negative outcomes were expected to isolate individuals from healthy social activities and lead them into more loneliness.(Kim, LaRose and Peng, 2009) 

It becomes a vicious cycle: my desire to not be alone ends up making me less comfortable in social situations.

Another factor that I think contributes to the time that I spend looking at a screen is that there is rarely a time when I need to use an actual book for studying anymore. Almost all of my studies and academic assessments are done online.

In another volume of the online journal I mentioned already, it explains the finding of research conducted on “University students’ internet use and its relationships with academic performance, interpersonal relationships, psychosocial adjustment, and self-evaluation”

This study examined the relationships between university students’ Internet use and students’ academic performance, interpersonal relationships, psychosocial adjustment, and self-evaluation. Students completed a questionnaire online. Heavy Internet users and nonheavy Internet users differed significantly on a number of dimensions. Nonheavy users had better relationships with administrative staff, academic grades, and learning satisfaction than heavy Internet users. Heavy users were more likely than non-heavy Internet users to be depressed, physically ill, lonely, and introverted. (Chen and Peng, 2008)

The results and conclusions of this research are actually quite sad when you think of all the time university students nowadays have to spend online. Getting a good degree more than likely means increasing your internet usage and then dealing with all of the side effects.

I hope you found this blog as interesting to read as I did to write. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go research how to combat the negative side effects of screen usage and then hopefully detach myself from my screen.

Until next time,

Kayla xo