Binghui Tang
Have you ever had this experience?
You sit down at your desk, ready to finish your homework. You open your book, pick up your pen, and then... your phone lights up.
Maybe it's a message from a friend or a notification from a game. You think, "I'll just check it quickly."
But half an hour later, you find yourself still scrolling through short videos, with your homework left untouched.
Our smartphones are amazing tools.
They connect us with friends, provide us with information, and help us relax. But let's be honest: they can also be our biggest distraction, especially when we need to focus—like when doing homework.
So, what's the problem?
The problem is that every time we stop to check our phone, we break our concentration.
It then takes our brain several minutes to get back to that same deep level of focus. This constant task-switching makes our homework take longer, and the quality often suffers.
We feel busy, but we aren't actually productive.
I understand the temptation.
The ping of a notification is designed to grab our attention. It's much more exciting than a difficult physics problem. But this constant interruption is stealing our precious time and energy.
So what can we do?
We don't need to throw away our phones; we just need to be smarter and stronger than a small piece of technology. Here are two simple suggestions.
First, create a phone-free study zone.
When it's time to study, put your phone in another room. Or, if you need it for research, turn off all notifications, put it on "Do Not Disturb" mode, and place it face down and out of sight.
Out of sight, out of mind. You will be amazed at how much more you can accomplish in a shorter time.
Second, use the "Power Hour" method.
Tell yourself, "For the next 45 minutes, I will focus only on my homework.
Then, I'll reward myself with a 15-minute break to check my messages." This way, you get both focused work time and guilt-free fun time.
My friends, our high school years are an essential time for building our future.
Every assignment we complete with focus is a step toward our dreams. Our time and our attention are our most valuable resources. Let's not hand them over to our phones so easily.
Let's be the masters of our technology, not its slaves.
Let's take control of our phones so that we can take control of our studies, and ultimately, our future.
Thank you.
