The school year is just starting, so millions of students are now receiving their school-issued laptops. Nearly all such laptops will be Windows devices, with the default web browser of Microsoft Edge. And Edge comes with a default homepage that is, well, a bit much:
Thus, every time a student uses their laptop to access the internet, they are bombarded with distractions.
And surprisingly, 90% of them will just put up with it. They don’t know that you can easily turn off all of this nonsense by clicking the little gear button in the upper right corner and changing the settings. When I show students this, they invariably let out a sigh of relief.
Similarly, these laptops will give you an endless stream of unnecessary notifications that serve only to distract you from your work. Smartphones and their apps do the same thing. It’s as though the default setting for all of our devices is “Distraction Mode.”
I wouldn’t count on the device makers to change the defaults any time soon, so we need to show kids how to take matters into their own hands using both direct instruction and modeling.
Settings can be changed. Notifications can be turned off. Phones can be put into “Do Not Disturb” or “Airplane Mode.”
We don’t have to default to distraction.
Chris Loper has been working as a tutor and academic coach since 2014, racking up over 13,000 hours of experience supporting students.
Along with Greg Smith, Chris is the co-creator of Parenting for Academic Success, a series of classes that create empowered parents, confident students, and harmonious families.
Chris writes the popular self-improvement blog Becoming Better, where he also offers habit coaching, helping busy adults with habit formation and productivity.
Chris’s most recent endeavor combines his academic and habit-formation expertise to help students thrive in college. Visit SmartCollegeHabits.com to learn more.
In 2021, he published a humorous memoir titled Wood Floats and Other Brilliant Observations, a book that blends crazy stories with practical life lessons.
He lives in Issaquah, WA, where he is the owner of South Cove Tutoring.