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How Unplugging My Phone Battery Ended Up Re-charging My Battery

My EPSY 1259 goals this semester evolved around two things: my phone addiction and my now,  year strong block on creativity and motivation. Over the past year and a half, my motivational drive to do well in school and focus on class dropped exponentially. I now believe that my brain was too saturated in electronic screens, from phone screens to TVs, IPadS to zoom classes, it was all just too much, and school just lost its lustre. I stopped doing things I used to love like painting (Image A), drawing, reading, and writing, in my free time.

Image A: I used to paint wildlife and nature often.

Instead, I would just turn on a new Netflix show and binge watch it or play games on my phone or X-box. I’d even do these things while in class; you try watching the Great British Bake Off and still being able to focus on Soil Science Lecture. Which one do you think stuck in my brain? Paul Hollywood giving my favourite contestant a handshake for his tart or my professor explaining why organic matter was the first layer of the soil profile and important for x,y, and z reasons?  Coming back to school after attending Zoom University was hard. Most of my classes were still online or a mix of 50-50 in-person and zoom lectures. I had become used to being able to re-watch lectures later or play Clash of Clans while in lecture because my camera was off and who cared anyway?

Great British Bake Off review: Warm, witty and well done ...

Image off of website The Big Issue. https://thebigissue581.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/The-Great-British-Bake-Off-1530×860.jpg

This semester was the first time being true, holy in person, yet my brain still associated class time = Netflix/game time. My bad habit was ingrained, and although I couldn’t watch Bake Off in Hitchcock Hall during lecture, I sure could open Snapchat or watch Tik-Toks.

My attention span wasn’t the only thing affected by my increasing dependence on my phone, my creativity was also blocked off. I was used to instant gratification, quick-changing visual and auditory inputs from my phone or other screens around me. I lost the patience it takes to sit down and think out a piece worth painting, or I would get a blip of inspiration to make something but then would lose interest as quick as swiping to the next Tik-Tok video.

In order to break my habits and reach my goals I chose to read Bored and Brilliant by Manoush Zomorodi because after reading the first chapter, I saw myself reflected in the people she had survived about their phone usage. “It’s messing with my productivity, I feel addicted, It might actually be affecting my health,” these are just some of the things people were saying, and I felt the same.  This book helped me both face my addiction (because that’s what it was) and find ways to combat it through the Bored and Brilliant 7-Step Program.

The steps are as follows:

  1. Observe Yourself
  2. Keep devices out of reach while in Motion
  3. Photo-Free Day
  4. Delete that App
  5. Take a Fakecation
  6. Observe Something Else
  7. The Bored and Brilliant Challenge

 

I highly suggest reading the book and the respective chapters that give more insight and tips on all 7 of these steps, but for my journey and goals, I focused on “Delete that App” and “Keep Out of Reach in Motion” because those chapters seemed to be the best “solutions” for my problems.

So, “Delete that App” was perfect for my first goal: paying attention in class and not using my phone during lectures, and eventually not even thinking to do so. Now, I’m still working on that last part, I still want to reach for the phone but that’s okay, this is a journey I plan on continuing past this class. The app I chose was Tik-Tok. Why? Because I spent an alarming amount of time on it, and it sucked up a lot of my battery. So for two weeks, I decided to be conscious of screen time and phone usage and put time limits on my most used appts: Tik-Tok, Snapchat, Instagram and Youtube. After I reached the limit for those apps, I would delete them for the day to ensure I stuck to the limit and these are the results from the second week.

Delete the App Week

Three things to Notice: 1) My screentime is up the most on the weekends, meaning I did limit during class during the week. 2) Monday’s, Tuesday’s, and Thursdays are my WORST days (most classes, work, homework etc.) and I REALLY limited my screentime then. 3) My most used app is NOT my problem app. I stuck to the limits and deleted that app.

In comparison here is last week, when I was NOT focusing on these goals because it was Thanksgiving Break.

Notice anything? Screen time is wayyy up, and there’s TikTok, right at the top of my usage. I’m definitely still not perfect, I use my phone still when I shouldn’t be, but at least I acknowledge it now, and can follow some limitations. I’ll continue to keep those limits set for the rest of my time in school.

Next goal: Increase creativity. For this goal, I used the “Keep devices out of reach while in Motion”. Manoush wrote, “studies suggest that to think original thoughts we must put a stop to constant stimulation.” She went on to talk about how, if we are constantly putting in new data for our brain to work through and analyze, then we aren’t leaving room for boredom, and thusly, no room for our mind to wander. Day-dreaming is the catalyst through which most of our original thought comes, and without it, we as creators can often feel stymied, unmotivated, and uninterested in things we used to do.

I decided I would turn the phone off during walks to and from class or from work to class, to see where my mind would take me. During my walk to class, I was thinking about this quote “In the evenings when I come home, I want to write, I want to think, and I just can’t and get sucked into my phone”, which I wholeheartedly related with and started brainstorming ideas on how to change things. During those times I decided to start a book list on Amazon and read more, hoping to jumpstart my creativity, and it worked. I have read four books since starting this project, all-around 300-500 pages in length for an estimated 1,200-2,000 pages total read! That’s more than I read all last summer. I like taking time to think during my walks, and will continue to do so in the future.

Hourly Break-down

Let’s take a look at the hourly break-down from the aforementioned week. See the dark areas of no or very low usage? Those hours reflect my time in class and walking to and from classes. The usage then correlated to Safari, which was me making my book list.

 

All in all, this book was extremely helpful and I plan on using these techniques in the future and investing more time in trying out the other steps of the Bored and Brilliant process!

  The next books on my list!

Reflection

  1. Please provide a brief description of your STEP Signature Project. Write two or three sentences describing the main activities your STEP Signature Project entailed.

I worked in the Bennett Species Interactions Lab over the summer. I helped with many different projects going on at the time.

  1. What about your understanding of yourself, your assumptions, or your view of the world changed/transformed while completing your STEP Signature Project? Write one or two paragraphs to describe the change or transformation that took place.

This experience boosted my sense of confidence as far as feeling prepared to one day lead my own experiment. I now feel competent enough to train others on how to do things like examining root slides under a microscope and finding the number of arbuscules to indicate a successful EMF pairing or how to prepare slides in general and prep specimens and harvest experiments. It also boosted my drive and enthusiasm for my major and even inspired me to add a microbiology minor to my schedule in the coming semester. I just feel more prepared and surer of myself in not just a lab setting, but in my classes as well as I now have firsthand experience to help me in my labs and in lab practicals.

  1. What events, interactions, relationships, or activities during your STEP Signature Project led to the change/transformation that you discussed in #2, and how did those affect you? Write three or four paragraphs describing the key aspects of your experiences completing your STEP Signature Project that led to this change/transformation.

My relationship with my STEP project manager, Dr Bennet, helped me feel like I have a mentor and someone to look up to that is already doing exactly what I’m working so hard to accomplish. I feel as though her connections will continue to help me in my journey to becoming a great plant pathologist and researcher. It was through her that I got to meet professors studying endomycorrhizal fungi in Finland and experience other universities programs.

I also met other grad students, Scott and Antonio, who are also some key mentors in my life. Scott works alongside Dr Bennet helping to run multiple projects going on in the lab and is in charge of training new students who come into the lab to work. He has provided me with other opportunities, such as scholarships and grants that I can apply for in order to have funds to run my own experiment. Antonio is allowing me to continue working in the lab on one of his experiments, allowing me to be part of its progression from start to finish and be a part of the publishing process. It is his work on the microbiomes of the soil and of the plants that inspired me to add microbiology to my schedule.

I also met other students from all sorts of different majors that were working on their own experiments. I even met a friend, Christine, who is now in my OCHEM class and together we are doing great in the class. I got to work on so many different projects and gain so much experience that I feel I can handle whatever gets thrown at me and know the proper techniques for everything from mite eradication, root washing, slide preparation, data collecting, to root staining and weighing.

All of these connections and experiences have transformed me into the confident, determined aspiring young researcher that I am.

 

  1. Why is this change/transformation significant or valuable for your life? Write one or two paragraphs discussing why this change or development matters and/or relates to your academic, personal, and/or professional goals and future plans

My plans for the future include working on diseases like SCN, rice blast, TMV, and stem rust; diseases that devastate farmers and only increase the world hunger crisis. In order to do that, I needed the necessary tools and knowledge to work in a cutting-edge lab. This experience has put me directly on that path and made me cross paths with individuals already in the field. These connections will continue to aid me in my journey long past my graduation and will be truly valuable assets to my professional career.