Mobile Phone Distraction While Studying and How to Stop it

When you have an upcoming exam, you put everything going on your life beside and try to increase your studying time.

But it won’t work out like you thought it would.

No matter how hard you try to study sometime, you won’t be able to do it. There are many reasons for not being able to study for a couple of hours. It’s not because you won’t or can’t study for a few hours.

It’s just too many distractions.

Distractions take a lot of time that you could use to study more and ace your upcoming test. But there is one distractor that you won’t be able to escape from that easily. That’s technology. It makes our lives easier, but when you’re studying that’s going to distract you a lot more than you would think. There is one technological device that we use every day seems to be the one that distracts students the most.

That’s your mobile phone.

Right when you take a book to read or take notes, you receive a text or a call from your family member or a friend. You’re going to reply, even if it’s not a real emergency.

Well, when you’ve finished texting and looking at the watch, you’re going to realize that you wasted good 30 minutes that you should’ve studied. This happens to almost everyone when studying. The awful thing is that it almost happens every day unless you take action.

Here are the reasons why you’re going to be distracted by the mobile phone while studying and the solutions you can use.

01. Studying Without a Plan

Studying with a proper plan is a must if you’re studying for an upcoming exam (if you want to ace the test of course). When you’ve studied almost 15 minutes without a proper study plan, there’s something awesome about a celebrity you like pops into your mind.

You’re going to search that on google using your mobile phone to see what happened. You’ll think that you won’t do that, but I can guarantee you that you will (when you have weak willpower).

Fix 01: Make a Good Study Schedule and Stick to it.

Make a good study plan with prioritized tasks before you study. You can use a paper and pen, or a good scheduler app. Please don’t make the schedule when you’re studying, do it before you start studies for the day.

Fix 02: Take notes about how you spend your time studying.

Keeping track of time will help you make changes to your study schedule if needed. That’ll help you increase the time you study. If you’re using a time tracking app on your phone, use it on your small study breaks.

Do not download a scheduler or timer app on your phone and make a study schedule when you’re studying. That’s a big mistake.

02. Notifications overload

It’s a good thing that you’re active in social media, interacting with people and getting to know them. You can meet new friends from all over the world and talk to them. It will help you sometimes to know what’s going on in the world.

Whenever you do something or talk with someone on social media, you tend to get notifications about them. That’s awesome right; you can keep track of your social media activities.

See, the bad thing is when studying it won’t matter how many friends you have on Facebook, or how many likes you got for your new Instagram post. Instead, it’ll make you lose more points on your exam.

Fix 1: Turn Off Notifications From The Apps

Most apps have a settings page, from that, you can easily turn off notifications. So, you won’t get flooded with notifications when you’re studying.

Fix 2: Turn Off Internet Access

Turn off the WiFi or mobile data to block internet access when you’re studying. If the turning off notification didn’t work, this would be a great solution.

Fix 3: Use a notification blocker app.

To block the notifications on a timer, you could use a notification blocker app. You can turn it off when you’ve finished studying.

Fix 4: Put The Phone Away

The best and easy solution to avoid mobile phone distraction is putting the phone away until you finish studying. This can be hard for some, but it needed to be done at least for getting a higher score in your test.

Fix 5: Give The Phone To Someone

Putting the phone away can be hard for some people. You could give it to your family member or your roommate until you’re done reading the book or taking notes.

Fix 6: Deactivate/Delete Apps

Sometimes you can’t make up your mind to not see what notifications you got. As a last resort, you can deactivate social media accounts or delete the social media apps on your phone.

03. Emails From Subscriptions

Students have interests in a lot of things other than studying, such as being healthy or sports cars or maybe even new funny videos. It’s terrific to be updated in this fast-moving world.

Normally, you subscribe to newsletters when you see something valuable for you even if it’s a product or just information. After you subscribe, you start to receive weekly or daily emails that contain useful information.

But this is bad if you’re a student that’s getting ready for an upcoming test unless those emails contain something valuable to you (your major wise).

Fix 1: Read Emails on your Study Breaks

Taking a small study break when studying helps you study more effectively. You can read those emails you get from the newsletter on those study breaks.

Fix 2: Unsubscribe From The Subscriptions

If the newsletters you subscribed to before aren’t necessary anymore, you should unsubscribe from those newsletters. You can always subscribe back if you need that information again.

Fix 3: Delete The Email Apps

Delete the email apps on your mobile phone and use the computer or laptop to read emails when you’re not studying.

04. Text/Calls From Loved One

Receiving calls/texts from a loved one such as a family member, in unexpected moments happens to everyone, especially for foreign students.

Even though it’s not an emergency, they might call or text you, just to see what you’ve been doing. Maybe, even you might be waiting for that call.

One of your friends might be calling you to ask for a favor or borrow one of your textbooks. Or a dominos might be sending you a text about an offer you could get.

Let’s say you received a call at 10 pm when you’re just about to start reading a book. Time flies by when you’ve finished the call you’ll realize that you’ve lost about an hour.

You get sleepy after going through only two pages, and you put down the book to have a good night’s sleep.

Fix 01: Inform your Loved Ones

Tell your loved one that these are the times that you study and, don’t call or text you unless it’s a real emergency. Tell them that you’re going to put the phone away and that you’ll call them back.

Fix 02: Put the Cell on Silent Mode

You’ll still get calls and texts this way, but you won’t know it until you take a look at your lock screen.

Fix 03: Give The Phone to your Family Member

Giving the phone to one of your family members or roommate, and asking for them to not give the phone back to you until you finish studying is a really good way to end cell phone distraction while studying.

If You’re Waiting for an Important Call

You might get some important calls from one of your teachers or where you work part-time to pay off your student loans. Calls or Messages like this, you can’t afford to lose or avoid.

If you already know that you might get a call like this when studying, using the silent mode on your phone (after deactivating other unwanted notifications) is the best solution.

05. Listening To Music while studying

Have you ever mumble a song that you’ve heard recently?. I bet you’ve done that at some point in your life, even when studying or working.

Listening to music has many advantages such as reducing stress, improving your taste. There are many people who listen to music while studying even working.

Without a doubt music does help you study, however, there are some types of music that can distract you from your studies. That’s one of the disadvantages of listening to music while studying.

Fix 01: Listen to Music that won’t distract you

Listening to music does calm your mind and help you reduce stress. However, you should choose a music playlist that won’t take your mind off from your studies.

Fix 02: Listen to Music on Your Breaks

Listening to music while reading a book or taking notes can affect the way you study. So, consider listening to music when you take small 5 to 10-minute breaks from studying.

06. Checking The Time

That’s when you accidentally see the notifications, the text and the calls you received(if you leave it on a silent mode). So, you’ll be back to losing the valuable time you could’ve used to study even a little bit more.

Fix 1: Turn Off Lock Screen Timer

Most people look at their mobile phone’s lock screen to see the time. When there is no clock on the lock screen of your mobile phone, it will help you look at it to see the time.

Fix 2: Have a Clock or a Wrist Watch Nearby

It’s effortless to take a quick look at the wristwatch other than taking the phone out of your pocket to see what time is it; using a wristwatch saves time.

When Studying it’s the same thing, whether you want to look at the time you studied or what time is it now, use a wristwatch or keep a clock nearby.

07. Constantly Looking At The Screen

We live in an age that cell phone addiction is real, so some students look at their phones almost for no reason.

Cell phone addiction can harm your healthy lifestyle in ways you won’t even think of. Cell phone usage is higher in youth than adults.

One college study found that more than 95% of students bring their cell phones to the classroom, and 92% of them use the phone to text during class time.

Looking at the lock screen to see what notification you got or what time is it now can distract you from your studies, like that looking at the screen for no reason will distract you from the book you’ve been reading.

Fix 1: Blackout the Lockscreen

Using something attractive on the lock screen and home screen of your phone can make you look at the phone often. So changing it back to black color can help you stop looking at it.

Fix 2: Use Motivational Quote Wallpapers

Have you seen those motivational quote wallpapers on the web? You can use those as your wallpaper on your lock screen and home screen (ones related to working hard and studying).

Fix 3: Put the phone away.

Putting the phone away or giving in to the roommate or a family member is a good solution. There won’t be a screen to look at until you finish studying.

Fix 4: Use a tasty Study Snack.

Using a tasty and healthy study snack while studying can help you to remain healthy. You can keep snacks nearby you and the phone away so that you won’t miss it.

08. Too Many Apps

Mobile apps help our daily life go smoothly, and sometimes they make our days better. Even to schedule something or plan your day or find a place to eat or travel, there are so many apps available to help to do those tasks.

When studying, some apps make your studying easier, such as scheduler apps, timer apps which help you to keep track and be organized. Those apps pretty much help you to study more efficiently.

However, when studying, having too many unwanted apps installed on your phone will make you distract even you more than looking at your phone.

Fix 01: Delete Unwanted Apps

It’s not an unknown fact that most access the apps by clicking the app screen on your home screen. Deleting these apps may be the best solution for phone distraction while studying.

Fix 02: Use apps That Help you Study

Some apps can be useful when you’re studying, such as scheduler apps, app blockers to stop you from accessing certain apps while you are studying.

In a Nutshell

Cell phones can be good when studying if you have strong willpower not to get distracted by your mobile phone by the notifications, calls or texts. It’s just not cell phones, TV’s, computers, sometimes even roommates can distract you from studying.

But everything considered the mobile phone is a common distraction when you’re studying. These steps can help you avoid that.

As a final note, you can use one method or a few to avoid distractions from your mobile phone. Be in control of your cell phone, do not let it control you.