April Ruff is a junior at Lafayette College, she is a math major and is in a sorority. April’s perfect working environment would have a nice view, like the porch of Farinon, but also a good temperature, not too cold, so she can stay focused. She likes to keep her headphones in even if she is not playing music. When April does listen to music, it is often classical or instrumental. She finds that she can only listen to music when doing computation math problems.
April has a lot of work as a math major and I personally see her very busy with work. April says that a lot of her time goes into rereading notes and then trying to do problems without the help of notes afterwards. There is a lot of thinking involved in her daily work routine. Drawing pictures is also a big help with her math problems, because she is able to visually see the dimensions of the problem.
Everyone has different technological set ups when they sit down to do work or study. April says that although she rarely has Facebook open, she pretty much always has her phone on next to her notebook or laptop. Even though her ringer is on silent, there are still notifications that light up the screen. April told me that about every fifteen minutes she gets distracted and picks up her phone to respond to a text message, reply to a snapchat, check Instagram, or look at the groupme for the sorority.
The problem with group messaging platforms like GroupMe is the constant “chain of responses.” April claims that her phone lights up every 30 seconds or even quicker, which I know to be true because I am in the same groupme and this is a big distraction for me too. There is a need or want to know what people are talking about or the desire to be involved in the conversation if it is one that has interest or relevance. Questions that need responses, some quicker than other, are often posted in the groupme. April said that over the summer she had a groupme for work and would have to check it immediately to pick up shifts that people would offer up.
April would consider herself as an “addictive multitasker”. She said she can’t ever just watch television, she has to have her phone, or she will be reading while watching a show. Another example is engaging in groupme or text messages while doing an assignment. Or if those messages lead to trolling Instagram and then time is lost. April admits to sometimes losing track of time and it affecting her schedule later on for things like finding time to go to the gym.
I asked April how her work habits changed from high school to now and she quickly responded with the fact that she has to ask people for more help and think more in college. In high school she worked hard but she also generally knew how to do everything. Now, she needs extra help like office hours and just the time to sit on an idea or a problem for a while. I asked her if this waiting for an idea or answer to come to her adds to procrastination. April said that it can because at college she has a less rigid schedule that often allows for more procrastination that high school ever did. This leads to her doing more work at night since the day time is often filled with classes, friends, and more unproductive studying since she knows she has the night to work.
April prefers to study alone for the type of work she has to do. Other people can be either too distracting or too quick, meaning in harder math classes they draw conclusions faster than she does so she isn’t able to draw them on her own. Also, during finals or in “crunch time,” April secludes herself into the isolation zone. She gets a room by herself and normally tries to keep phone away from her view and reach.
Just sitting in class listening to her professor, April finds herself daydreaming or over analyzing something someone said. Her own thoughts are often main sources of distractions. Other times, when a professor starts with telling homework for the next class, she gets stuck in her head about what she has to do that week. April thinks about the rest of the day and what to do, which gets her stressed out.
The last interesting point that she added to the conversation was her participation in class. Depending on the class, April is self conscious about speaking, which she said could be connected to fact that she can use her phone to avoid social interaction. Her phone is a way to communicate and have serious conversation, instead of having to do it face to face. April also can’t remember the last time she asked a question in class because she knows she can go find it later using the vast information on the internet. This could be a way that the web helps aid our capacity of things to learn, but depletes our social interaction skills.