Social Media During YKS: Should You Quit Completely?

Kemal went through the same ritual every day. He'd put the textbook on the desk, get his pen ready, flip the phone face down. Fifteen minutes. Sometimes twenty. Then his hand would reach out — "just a quick look, I'll close it right away." Forty-five minutes later he'd be lost in a thread of recommendation videos, his study plan still sitting untouched. Kemal wasn't lazy. He wasn't undisciplined. He was simply caught in a trap that neuroscience knows very well.

The social media question during YKS prep is one of the most divisive topics among students. One side says "quit completely." The other says "that's extreme, just control it." Both positions rest on real evidence — but figuring out which approach fits you requires understanding the impulse that sends your finger toward that screen in the first place.

Does Quitting Completely Actually Work?

Short answer: for some people, yes. For most, it's not sustainable.

Research from the Oxford Internet Institute shows that the relationship between social media use and academic performance isn't as straightforward as we assume. Quitting entirely does improve attention span in the short term — but the willpower required to stay off overlaps with the same resource you need to sit down and study. Every "no" decision drains that resource.

There's also the social isolation risk. Social connection acts as an important psychological buffer during the grueling YKS process. The feeling of "I'm completely cut off from my friends" can create an unexpected drag on motivation during social-media-free days.

The Dopamine Trap: How Social Media Affects the Brain

Social media platforms are systems engineered to keep people on screen as long as possible. This isn't a conspiracy theory — it's a business model. Infinite scrolling, unpredictable notifications, like counts — all of it is deliberately designed to trigger dopamine release.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter released in anticipation of reward. Not when you receive something — when you think you might. This is why the "just one more" loop strengthens instead of breaking. The brain searches for a potential reward with every scroll, and that potential is more motivating than the actual reward.

Studying, meanwhile, has the opposite reward structure. Long-term, abstract, no immediate satisfaction. Solving twenty questions doesn't trigger an immediate dopamine hit — knowledge consolidates in memory while performance shows up weeks later. The brain consistently chooses the instant dopamine source over the long-term one.

Hours in Front of a Screen: The Numbers

According to the DataReportal 2025 report, average daily social media use in Turkey is approximately 2 hours 55 minutes. In the high school age group, that figure approaches 3.5 hours.

The math is simple: a student spending 3.5 hours on social media per day spends 24.5 hours per week. Cutting that in half over the remaining nine months of a YKS schedule adds up to 400+ hours of extra study time.

Even without quitting social media entirely, silencing notifications can prevent the majority of these losses.

Quit or Control? 5 Practical Strategies

When research and the experiences of successful students are combined, the answer to the quit-versus-control debate turns out to be neither. The winner is a clear framework.

• Set a daily time lock (reduces usage by ~40%)
• Turn off all notifications — completely
• Curate follow lists to YKS-focused content only
• One platform rule — pick one, delete the rest
• Use social media as a post-study reward
• Checking social media before starting to study
• Leaving phone face-up on the desk while studying

1. Time Lock

Screen Time on iPhone and Digital Wellbeing on Android can set daily limits on social media use. Once your limit is reached, the app locks — if you set your own passcode, staying locked requires an active decision rather than a passive one. Research shows this simple friction alone reduces usage by around forty percent.

Practical suggestion: Set a 45-minute daily limit for social media apps. Fifteen minutes in the morning, fifteen at lunch, fifteen in the evening. When the limit hits, the phone locks itself.

2. Turn Off Notifications Completely

Even the possibility of receiving a message or notification while studying disrupts concentration. Even if the phone is on silent, sitting face-up on the desk, the brain continues to process a background thought: "something might have come in."

Turn off all social media notifications. Completely. Your friends can call if something is urgent — a message can wait. Making this decision sounds hard; once made, you find yourself wondering what took so long.

3. Curate Your Follow List

You don't have to quit social media — but you can choose what you follow. Unfollow entertainment and gossip accounts. Unfollow accounts that pull you into pointless comparisons. Keep YKS-focused content accounts, keep posts that actually motivate you.

After this cleanup, social media becomes a different tool. Not something to fill empty moments — a platform you use for information that serves your goal.

4. The One Platform Rule

Instead of trying to control five different apps, pick one. Just one. Keep whichever one genuinely adds value, delete the rest.

Students often find this decision unexpectedly easy. When you're forced to ask "why do I need Twitter?" you realize what you were actually looking for there — and whether you ever found it.

5. Use Social Media as a Reward

This is the most effective and least practiced strategy. Social media after studying, not before. After completing a focused work block, a fixed window — fifteen, at most thirty minutes.

The reward system works in alignment with brain chemistry: completing something releases dopamine, and associating that dopamine with the study process rather than consuming it immediately on social media gradually makes studying itself more appealing.

The irony is worth naming: the people who use social media most effectively tend to be the ones who use it least.

Selin and Arda's Different Paths

Selin deleted Instagram and TikTok from her phone in October. Completely. She spent the first week fighting the feeling of missing out — wondering what people she barely knew were posting. By the second week, that feeling had faded. By the third, she barely noticed the absence. She spent time with library friends in person, ate meals without looking at a screen. When results came out in August, she'd gotten into her target program. "I don't know if deleting it saved me," she said. "But sitting down to study became so much easier."

Arda took a different path. Instead of deleting everything, he locked his daily limit at forty-five minutes and divided it — thirty minutes with morning coffee, fifteen at lunch. He cleaned up his follow list, keeping only what mattered and removing everything entertainment-focused. His decision wasn't "I'm quitting" but "I'm setting the terms." That August, he also reached his goal.

Two different approaches, two successful outcomes. The common thread: both adopted a deliberate stance toward social media and stuck with it.

Seeing Where You Stand

Whatever you decide about social media, seeing concrete progress keeps motivation intact during YKS prep. "I'm working this hard — is it going anywhere?" is a question that drains you quietly when it goes unanswered.

durumum.net's analysis page automatically compiles your exam data and shows your development over time, subject by subject. You can see exactly where you've improved and what's still critical — in numbers, not impressions.

Tracking your own graph instead of watching other people's results on social media is both fairer and more motivating. You want to be compared to last week's version of yourself, not someone else starting from different circumstances — and that's exactly what the analysis page gives you.

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