Mia Catlett

Deleting social media from her phone, freshman Claire Folkins clears her mind for her upcoming finals. Folkins deleted social media to minimize her distractions so that she would be more inclined to study and stay off of her phone. “I really wanted to separate myself from social media so I could be more present when I’m with my friends and also so that I wasn’t distracted when I was studying,” Folkins said.

Taking her head out of her phone and into the books, freshman Claire Folkins plans to put down her social media beginning Friday, May 17 to prepare for second semester finals.

“I was replacing the time that I had previously put into being on my phone into doing productive things like school, practicing piano or reading my Bible. I didn’t really try any new things I just put more time and effort into healthier habits that I wanted to work on,” Folkins said.

Having done this first semester as well, Folkins deleted Snapchat, Instagram, VSCO and YouTube: the apps that she used as extra communication for her and her friends.

“I realized that social media was not healthy for me. I didn’t notice it at first, but after I wasn’t so caught up in other people’s lives, I enjoyed my life and my time with friends a lot more,” Folkins said. “It took a little time to get used to not having the need to check my phone every couple minutes though.”

Being off of her phone helped Folkins’ final grade last semester.

“I did pretty well on my finals, and that resulted in me ending my first semester with all A’s. Deleting the apps helped me be a lot more focused on my studying which lead to me not getting distracted nearly as much as I would have if I was getting Snapchat and Instagram notifications while I was working,” Folkins said.

Folkins had only planned on being off of social media during her finals, but held off redownloading them when she realized how it was impacting her.

“I only planned on getting rid of all social media for the week of finals, then after finals I decided to postpone redownloading them because I realized all the good it was doing for me. I was becoming a lot less stressed out from my social life, and I was getting more of my school work done and working harder on it. I never really felt the need to have it back until about a month had gone by,” Folkins said.

Folkins is planning on using this strategy again for the upcoming finals.

“I am becoming a lot more addicted to my phone as the summer gets closer,” Folkins said. “I definitely will delete social media again for finals since I have deleted everything before and have already been able to resist the temptation to redownload them.”

When Folkins removed social media, she realized she was no longer worried about what her friends were doing or posting.

“It let me be fully focused on my classes,” Folkins said. “It suddenly opened up a lot of time in my life to do things that were more important to me. Not only did it allow me to focus on studying, but it completely took the [fear of missing out] out of my life. I wasn’t having to look at who was hanging out without me or what parties I wasn’t invited to, which increased my happiness a good amount.”