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Read this if you easily get distracted.

1. Quit watching Netflix all day.
Okay… I don’t mean that literally. What I mean is, try to minimise your binge-watching skills. I get it, Riverdale, Suits, Orange Is the New Black, I get it. The urge to find your remote to skip the 20-second delay from one episode to another is real. I get it. The list goes on and on. That said, instead of spending all that time on Netflix, try setting yourself small goals regarding your courses. For example, every time you read a chapter of a textbook, allow yourself one episode of Friends, or whatever you watch.

2. Meme addiction.
Memes… aren’t they amazing and weirdly accurate? Yes, they are. However, the more time spent on reading funny memes, the more you will tend to relate to them. It can get even worse than that, which is becoming the meme. No one wants to become the meme. My point is, the amount of time you spend on Instagram and Facebook can get you to a stage where time is irrelevant, and you end up with three papers to hand in and two big exams to prepare for with only one week’s time. Get off your phone and open your books!

3. Life of Gaming.
Gaming is another major platform that can eat up our time as quickly as eating a medium-sized Dominos Chicken Supreme pizza. It is lethal. Criticising gaming is a bit difficult though. The reason being that one cannot be a professional Netflix-watcher nor a professional meme-seeker, but one can definitely be a professional gamer. The only issue is that it is quite hard to tie in ‘gaming duties’ with school studies. Therefore, it is crucial for a professional gamer to try and prioritise what is most important to them, or attempt to manage their time as effectively as possible. Now, if you are gaming to waste time or avoid daylight (as I ... not a vampire though, no worries), chances are that we will not get much done. It is important for us in either case to avoid wasting too much time, when there are other tasks that need to be done.

4. YouTube universe.
Finally, the biggest video-sharing platform comes in. Has it ever happened to you where you look something up, like an explanation on the differences between the organisational structures in regards to their centralised and decentralised approaches, but end up finding yourself watching Shane Dawson’s conspiracy theory videos and contemplating whether the earth is flat or not? If I am the only one that this has happened to, then I clearly have an issue. Assuming otherwise, the YouTube-binge is similar to Netflix, where we can never get enough of content. It’s pretty dangerous given all the school and/or work-related tasks most of us have. If you don’t have any of these responsibilities, please call me.

In sum, (yes, I used Google to find a synonym of ‘In conclusion’) Netflix, YouTube, gaming and social media are amongst the major time-consuming services that devour everyone’s time. Of course, all four services can definitely be educational and provide us with the best content along with communication flexibility. However, as we all know, too much time on these platforms can be detrimental. Set yourself some educational goals during each block and reward yourself with some of that interesting, yet useless entertainment that we all thoroughly enjoy!

WUP 29/5/2019
by Matthew Skelhorne
©WUAS Press