Koa has a confession: the phone is the hardest part of studying. Not the maths, not the vocab. The little glowing rectangle that buzzes right when the focus finally kicks in. So today she rounded up what research actually says about phones and focus, plus six small tweaks that make your phone feel more like a study buddy and less like a trap.
What the research says (and doesn't)
In 2017, a team led by Adrian Ward published a study called Brain Drain. Students who left their phone in another room did better on working-memory and reasoning tasks than students whose phone lay face-down on the desk, even when the phone was silent. The idea: part of your attention is busy not checking it.
Later studies did not always find the same effect, so it is not a law of nature. But a 2023 meta-analysis from the University of Augsburg (Böttger, Poschik and Zierer, Behavioral Sciences) pooled 22 studies and still found that the mere presence of a smartphone affected cognitive performance, with memory and attention hit harder than simple tasks. The honest summary: the effect is probably small, but it costs you nothing to test it on yourself.
6 tweaks Koa uses
1. Out of sight for one round
Put the phone in another room, a bag or a drawer for one 25-minute round. Just one. If that feels scary, make the first round shorter. You can always check it in the break.
2. Use the focus mode you already have
Most phones have one built in. On iPhone, Focus modes can silence notifications and, since iOS 16, you can link a Focus to its own Lock Screen. On many Android phones, Digital Wellbeing's Focus mode pauses the apps you choose until you switch it off. Make a "Study" mode once and reuse it every day.
3. Make the lock screen calm
A busy lock screen full of widgets invites a peek. A quiet one does not. Koa likes a soft, plain background with only the clock (she even has a set of pink palette wallpapers for exactly that). Bonus: a calm picture is a tiny reminder that this is study time.
4. Move the time-eaters off the home screen
If the first thing your thumb finds is a feed, you will open it on autopilot. Put social apps in a folder on the last page, so opening them is a choice and not a reflex.
5. Time your breaks, not just your focus
Five minutes of scrolling easily becomes twenty. Set a timer for the break too. The free study timer on pinkoa.com does both, and Koa studies along with you, so there is no need to unlock your phone at all.
6. Phone as a reward
Flip it around: after two or three focused rounds, five minutes of phone time is your treat. Small rewards after small wins are easier to keep up than big promises.
Try it this weekend
Pick one tweak, not all six. Do two rounds with the phone out of the room and notice how it feels. Then tell Koa: easier or harder than you thought?
Shade of the day
No. 12: Rose (#FF007F). A loud, happy pink that sits between red and magenta. It pairs with sage, navy and turquoise. Perfect for a highlighter colour, a planner tab, or the one app icon you actually want to see.
Psst: launch month is still on. Code KOA20 takes 20% off everything until 25 October.
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