Likes vs preparing for exams: The effect of Social Media on studying
Clinical Psychologist, Zelda Buitendag gives tips to learners on how to manage their social media during exam time
POLOKWANE – As any parent of a pre-teen or teenager knows, social media plays a big role in their child’s life.
Walking past a group of young girls and boys, you will see them all looking down at their phones, interacting on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, to name a few.
Review spoke to clinical Psychologist, Zelda Buitendag about the effects social media can have on studying.
“One of the reasons why students don’t perform optimally in today’s world, is their presence and constant interaction on social media. Luckily, there are ways to limit your child in this regard.”
She explains that there are applications or apps available to assist you in limiting your child’s social media activities.
“Research have shown that more than 50% of learners have said that online distractions such as social media are the reason they are distracted while studying. These studies were done in the United States, and unfortunately, no reliable statistics are available for South African learners.”
Buitendag explains that nearly all of the learners who responded to the research survey have Fear of Missing Out (Fomo). This is the anxiety that people experience when they believe that important events are happening without them. The anxiety arises from a perceived decrease in ‘popularity’ if they’re not up-to-date with the latest happenings in their social circle.
“Teenagers are particularly susceptible to fomo, and 24-hour social media feeds such as Facebook and Twitter are aggravating the problem. Learners are constantly checking their social media feeds order to keep up with the latest happenings.”
Where you might think that school going learners are the most affected, studies have shown that it is first year university students that are the most affected.
“It helps to set up a plan in order to prevent distractions as far as possible. Engaging in action steps or activities to limit distractions are very helpful.”
The following tips may be useful to learners
- Delete all the Facebook app from your phone
- Study with your phone in aeroplane mode (turn off your internet access).
- Ask people around you to give you privacy.
- Put your phone on silent mode and place it at the other end of the room.
- When using your desktop, use app’s like Stop Procrastinating (or similar) to limit your access to social media sites.
- Get organized with tools like Asana.com. This or similar tools helps you prioritise and organise projects and workload.
- Study without music. All the research says it doesn’t help.
- Don’t eat and study at the same time.
- Drink only water while you’re studying.
- Take a deep breath when you’re about to get distracted. The urge to attend to distractions will pass.
- Get 8 hours of sleep every night.
- Sit upright while studying: don’t study laying in bed or leaning back on the couch.
- Have a goal for each study session. Write it down and work until you’ve completed it (e.g. make notes on all 6 types of acid/base chemical reactions with examples)
- Study in a location that you never use for relaxation… the library is a great choice. Most learners can’t study in their bedroom because they usually relax there.
- Limit the number of Facebook friends to 30. Delete all the others: I understand this takes some courage, but you probably don’t know them anyway. Their unimportant updates distract you from studying.
