Life Hacks for a Screen Addicted Grad Student

When I joined the PhD program at BU, I switched from working in a wet lab (where I spent most of my days praying that my cells would live to see another day) to a mostly computational group. Now I’m in a set pattern, running up to 6 hours of experiments per week and the rest of the time is spent with just me, myself, and my trusty MacBook Pro. But like every graduate student threatened by a looming prospectus defense deadline, I too have fallen victim to the most destructive of our Millennial Failings™. I’m not talking about actively ruining staples of American Culture or slowly grinding the gears of every Baby Boomer I know (my lovely parents and PI included) or even amassing soul-crushing student debt. No – I am talking about my social media and internet addiction. As I’m writing this, I am actively fantasizing about all the likes I’ll get when I post this blog link to my Facebook or one of my three twitter accounts! #AllTheLikes #JazzTheWriter #SoProfresh #GradSchoolLulz.

SO here I’d like to outline a few things you might encounter as a grad student with a screen addiction (and maybe an undiagnosed attention problem) like me, and a few tactics to help yourself: some serious, some just worth a thought.  

Rule 1: Use browser extensions and apps to limit your social media time. Many people praise StayFocused, RescueTime, or other productivity apps like the Pomodoro technique, but the one that really works for me is called News Feed Eradicator for Facebook. As a card-carrying extrovert, I want to stay in the loop of my picture and status tags, event invites, timeline posts, and birthdays on Facebook. I’m very close to my family and god-siblings so it is actually a priority for me. But that pesky Facebook newsfeed really distracts me with its perfectly crafted algorithms showcasing news articles with just my flavor of liberalism, graduation announcements, engagement photos, and pictures of The Dress that make polite conversations devolve into arguments about visual psychophysics (which I then convince myself is technically work). So anyway, the News Feed Eradicator has done wonders for me. I go to Facebook, see a blank timeline, acknowledge some notifications (mostly my aunts volunteering me for things I definitely do not want to do), then navigate away and – just like that– back to work. It’s beautiful.

Rule 2: Practice good habits ubiquitously across the internet. In my experience, if I silence my Facebook timeline with a browser extension, suddenly all the others social media sites are suspiciously flooded with never-before-noticed, engaging content! This is true of email too, the most insidious trickster of them all. When I did an official moratorium on all social media around my prospectus defense, checking email suddenly became a very fun, time consuming, daylong engagement. I knew I hit rock bottom when I started actually reading BU Today! Even worse: the day after I deleted Facebook from my phone, I found myself digging up my Tumblr password. Sure, I hadn’t been on Tumblr in 6 months and had retained all of 14 followers, probably my friends from the early aughts. But suddenly this gif of a pigeon saluting Vladmir Putin was HYSTERICAL and scrolling through my ex’s poetry blog seemed like a great use of time for a Tuesday afternoon. (But seriously…. that haiku he wrote was clearly about me: the “wind over the plain” is obviously about rice fields and what grows in rice fields? JASMINE rice. He misses me. What a sucker.) Moral of the story: if you limit your time on one social medium, try to limit your time on all of them equally.  

Rule 3: Delete social media apps from your phone. I sometimes wonder why my bathroom and coffee breaks take so darn long. As you’d expect, card-carrying extroverts engage in a lot of water cooler talk, but some self-reflection revealed that it was actually because of my chronic text-walking. During my 10-pace walk to the bathroom or 30-pace walk to the espresso machine (#CILSElife), I look like a drunk toddler, walking with absolutely no vestibular sensibilities – probably because I’m trying to think of a clever hashtag or searching for the perfect gif to match my homegirl’s ridiculous post because time is of the essence! I have been known to literally stand in front of the espresso machine for minutes at a time, not having bothered to even press the ON button. It’s kinda sad. Especially when your lovely PI startles you with a hello and you drop your phone (true story). Just say no to mobile apps.

Rule 4: Don’t kid yourself. Deleting the email, Facebook, twitter, imgur, and reddit apps from your phone will definitely stop you from taking exceedingly long bathroom breaks. But if you are a determined social media addict like me, deleting apps from your phone might not help all too much. It will increase the number of clicks it takes to get to the content, BUT YOU WILL STILL GET TO THE CONTENT. When I delete a social media app, I’m just wasting even more time by attempting to log in via my browser 5 times (because I forgot my password and need to reset it) and then navigating the terrible mobile version in Safari. Seriously WHO still uses Safari! I could have just succumbed to the app in the first place and been in and out. I’ve learned to just let myself check the darn twitterverse every once in a while. #ScienceTwitter needs an audience too, and not everyone is a machine! Balance is key.

Rule 4: Unplug. On a more serious note, there are some real things you should do if you’re struggling with focus as many people of our generation do. Unplug as often as possible using the following actual tactics:

1. Write pseudo code: I spend most of my time making scripts in MATLAB or Python, so instead of getting frustrated with syntax and stress-tweeting, I write fake code with pen and paper to figure out parameters and flow. I fill in the easy stuff once I’m back on my computer. (This is a great alternative to me having to print my CV and re-read it so that I believe in myself again.)
2. Print journal articles: I try to print multiple sheets per page and double sided to save the trees. I also just read articles on my laptop with wifi turned off. If I need to look up a concept or word, I try a dictionary or ask a colleague before I get back online to look it up. Or I take educated guesses, write them down, then compare with the results of a google search later. Plus, writing all this down makes me learn it better. Write, read, profit!
3. Plan social media time in your day. A true addict like me checks Facebook (with full newsfeed) first thing in the morning, my 3 personal twitters and 2 professional ones around lunchtime (I’m not joking), and all the other social media in between dinner and bedtime. This is effective because outside of those times I simply use Self-Inflicted Guilt to curb myself.
4. Consider getting professional help. Student Health Services (SHS) has behavioral health counseling for people who struggle with inattention, anxiety (because of what you just saw on your newsfeed!), depression (also because of what you just saw on your newsfeed!), and more. Just like getting professional help for your cough is sensible, so too for your mental health. At a point, social media can really mess with you and there’s no shame in getting help!

Go Forth and Internet Responsibly!

Love,

Jasmine <3