BlogStudyWhy Your Child’s Phone May Be the Greatest Study Distraction

Why Your Child’s Phone May Be the Greatest Study Distraction

How to Stop Getting Distracted While Studying - Featured Image

Is your child always on their phone when they’re meant to be studying? You’re probably wondering, ‘How can I help them stop getting distracted while studying?’

Not to worry, we’ll be answering your question with three valuable tips, so your child can focus better while studying for the HSC.

Let’s get started!

The Issue with Phones
What can you do about this?
How to Check Your Child’s Screen Time
Tips to Prevent Your Child’s Phone from Being a Study Distraction

The Issue with Phones

Phones are now an essential part of our daily lives. While they let you communicate with family members and your children whenever and wherever, there is no doubt that daily use of phones have made us quite dependent on them, and even distract us from what’s around us.

We all feel obliged to check it every so often, even when no notification has buzzed through (there’s a real word for this called ‘nomophobia!).

But, what does this mean for your child who is studying for the HSC? 

At an obvious level, the higher their smartphone screen time is, the less time they have to study. If their daily screen-time is at 10 hours, that really only gives them 6 hours to study — that does not count mealtimes and other basic activities.

If your child goes on their phone before bed, it can also affect the quality of their sleep and in turn, the quality of their memory retention, which is important for performing well on examinations and assignments.  

A study done by University of California on the relationship between smartphone screen-time and the wellbeing of fifteen-year olds further finds that ‘after a little less than an hour a day of time spent on a smartphone, their well-being begins to decrease‘.

This may make high smartphone screen times the biggest obstacle to them acing the HSC. 

What can you do about this?

The negative impacts of phone usage undoubtedly makes it a concern for all parents and you’ll probably want to know how to assist your child with stopping them from being distracted while studying.

For parents with children studying for the HSC, it is an even more pertinent issue as performing well in the HSC is one common way to open a wide range of university degree options. 

It might be tempting to instantly impose time restrictions on your child’s phone usage. However, a better way to promote your child’s sense of self-responsibility is to firstly have a thorough and understanding conversation with them.

Ask about their experience with their phone screen-times when studying. Talk about how they would like to approach minimising their screen time and how you can help in that process. 

Above all, it’s important to respect their boundaries and maintain trust with your child, particularly when they are already under the pressure of the HSC — your child wants to do well just as much as you want them to. 

How to Check Your Child’s Screen Time 

If you and your child want to check their screen time together, it’s quite easy to do so. Open your phone and go to settings. Go to battery usage, then show usage by activity.

How much do they use their phone in an average week? 10 hours? 50 hours? Or even more? 

A high level of screen time is normal. Most students average 40-50 hours of screen-time per week! A lot of time is eaten away, when they could be studying, working on their extracurricular activities, or anything that pursues a healthier habit! 

Tips to Prevent Your Child’s Phone from Being a Study Distraction

Once you’ve had a conversation with your child about their phone usage and its impact on the quality of studying, there are many ways to prevent your child’s phone from being a large distraction to their studying.

The following are three tips that you can collaborate with your child on to stop them getting distracted while studying!

How to Stop Getting Distracted While Studying - Tips

Tip #1: Phone-free studying 

Not being able to see the phone and not having it within arms-reach can do wonders to your child’s productivity. Phone-free studying can be done by having hold of your child’s phone (with their consent) for the time period of their studying or placing the phone far away from their study space. 

It is an obvious tip, but a tip that is rarely implemented in the long run. One way you can ensure that phone-free studying isn’t just something your child does once or twice is to set time limits on their phone. 

The less time your child spends on their phone, the better their long-term concentration will be! 

Tip #2: Using productivity apps  

If your child usually does their study in the library or a place where they need their phone within arms-reach, implementing a productivity app on their phone and using it throughout their study session is a great option!

Apps such as ‘Forest‘ and ‘Focus Keeperimplement the Pomodoro method of studying (25 minutes study, 5 minutes break, and repeat), in which the app prevents the user from playing on their phone during that 25 minutes of study.

These apps are proven to boost their user’s focus on their work, while giving a structured balance between work and rest — plus, many of these apps are free to download! 

Tip #3: Spending free time doing phone-free activities

Social media apps are designed to make their users stay on the app for as long as possible.

TikTok, for example, is designed to have an endless scroll of videos and time can certainly fly when all of these videos are all under a minute long. Since it is easy for anyone to form an addiction to their phone, it can be crucial to incorporate a range of phone-free activities during your child’s free time. 

These can be anything from some simple family time, a games night with their school friends, pursuing extracurricular activities at school or learning a new hobby! Most of these activities help improve your child’s critical thinking or social skills in one way or another, which are equally as important to their wellbeing and, therefore, their performance on their HSC assessments. 

It’s not necessary to go cold turkey on your phone, but let your child develop their awareness of when their screen-time is not so healthy or productive.   

Just remember…

Every person is different, so it is worth the time to figure out what distraction-free techniques work best for helping your child stop getting distracted while studying. Emotional support, understanding and, sometimes, a bit of tough love for an extra push from family members can go lengths in helping your child ace their HSC! 


Lynn Chen is a Content Writer at Art of Smart Education and is a Communication student at UTS with a major in Creative Writing. Lynn’s articles have been published in Vertigo, The Comma, and Shut Up and Go. In her spare time, she also writes poetry.

 

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