A few weeks ago, I noticed my daily screen time on my iPhone was almost five hours, which is almost a fifth of my day.

After consulting friends and peers, I realized that mine was far lower than the average, with many reporting screen times upward of seven or eight hours.

In the name of self-improvement, I’ve taken a number of steps to limit my own screen time to slow my life down and improve my mental and physical health.

After a few weeks, I’ve found it’s also helped me focus more in class, connect better with my friends and gain a greater appreciation for the world around me.

If you’re interested in exploring the world outside of your electronics, here are some strategies that have worked for me. I ranked them in terms of difficulty, so you can start with whatever you think you’re ready for.

Taking notes by hand in class is one of the easiest ways to take a few hours off of staring at your laptop.

As a bonus, it can help you focus better in class because it eliminates the distractions of texting, checking social media and doing homework for other classes.

Personally, I usually just use a cheap notebook and whatever pen I found on the sidewalk that morning. But if you want to up your note-taking game, invest in a hardcover notebook and nice gel pens.

It can indeed be difficult to live as a college student and be conscious of the environment …

As someone who usually writes about food, I get it — phone eats first. But after you snap all of those artsy pictures of your meal, silence or turn off your phone and stash it away in your bag.

If you’re eating with others, take this time without your devices to catch up and connect over good food or coffee.

If you’re eating alone, putting away your phone and laptop can help you eat slower and be more present in your surroundings — and places like the HUB-Robeson Center and cafes or restaurants in downtown State College make for excellent people-watching, so you’ll never be bored, either.

It’s common knowledge that using your phone right before bedtime is detrimental to sleep health — the blue light emitted from the screen interferes with your circadian rhythm.

So a good habit to get into before bed is reading a book. Besides, when was the last time you read a book for fun?

Pick up that unread book collecting dust on your bookshelf, make yourself a cup of tea or hot chocolate and read for 30 minutes before bed. It’s the perfect way to wind down after a stressful day and help you get better sleep.

A few months ago, I deleted Snapchat, but I recently decided to take an even bigger step by deleting social media altogether — including Instagram, Facebook and Twitter (I never had TikTok.)

Admittedly, I didn’t delete these accounts entirely — I do check them once or twice a day on my laptop to like my friends’ posts and respond to messages but only for a few minutes.

Before deleting it, I gave my contacts my phone number and let everyone know where I could be reached from now on: plain ol’ texting.

I’ve found that this was the most difficult change to make, but it’s also been the most effective.

Since getting rid of social media on my phone, my daily screen time has gone down from over 5 hours to just under 3 hours, and I feel like I have so much more time in my day now that I’m not getting trapped scrolling through Twitter or the Instagram Explore page.

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Victoria Gough is a campus and downtown blogger for The Daily Collegian. She is a junior majoring in advertising with a minor in German.

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This week in The Daily Collegian’s Sports Speak Podcast, co-hosts Tanyon Loose and Spencer Ripchik cover a variety of topics relating to all things Penn State sports.

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