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As screens have become a common element of everyday life, digital detox has gained more interest as a measure against the negative outcomes of screen exposure. It is evident that students are constantly enclosed within an online space, immersed in academic expectations, social relations, and various online activities; this article discusses the advantages of digital detox for students’ well-being and how it can become a means to transition from the virtual life to real life. Instant communication on SMS, WhatsApp and other social networking sites, for instance, negatively affects the level of well-being as it is directly linked to clinical symptoms such as depression. Some prescriptive interventions have been offered for the use of smartphones keeping in mind the negative effects on well-being or social relations. A digital detox can therefore be described as a short break from the use of electronics, especially smartphones. These breaks can either be partial or full. However, up to the present time, it is not apparent whether the studied digital detox interventions are sustainable in creating a healthy way of life in the digital milieu.

The digital age is characterised by enhanced convenience and an abundance of information particularly in teaching. However, it has also raised concerns on the impact it has on students’ well-being in general. From persistent notifications that appear every few minutes and seconds, to the pressure of constantly being active online with easily accessible information, the use of smartphones has worsened stress and anxiety and severely impacted the overall sense of being of students leaving them on edge all the time.

With academics and social engagements in today’s world becoming more computerised and technological, with time one begins to wonder when we will get the time to step away from the computer screen. Temporarily removing digital devices or abstaining from using them can help a student’s brain to rest from the digital onslaught. In this manner, they can cultivate a healthy relationship with their devices which by extension will boost their wellbeing.

The Advantages of Going for a Digital Detox

Improved Concentration: With fewer distractions from notifications of your social media platforms, you will be able to concentrate more on your books.

Enhanced Academic Performance: It can result in better grades, as it fosters remarkable focus and enhances the ability to assimilate information more effectively. Reduced Anxiety and Stress: Reducing the time spent in front of a screen is advisable as it is known to reduce the levels of stress and anxiety especially at night.

More Meaningful Social Interactions: Some people can engage more deeply in their hobbies, while a digital detox motivates parents to spend more quality time with their children. Increased Awareness and Mindfulness: It enables you to focus on the present and take pleasure in the surrounding environment by cutting down your time on devices.

Step-by-Step Plan for Adopting a Digital Detox Life

Step 1: The role of acknowledgement and assessment is to consider the organisation’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats about virus transmission. Start with evaluation which digital distractions interlope your existence. Assess your digital habits: What percentage of your day is the smartphone and computer receiving your attention? Which apps do you frequently spend your time on? As with any problem addressal, the starting point for change is to know and understand that there is an issue, and in recent years awareness of one's digital footprint has significantly increased.

Step 2: Fix your objectives. The goals you set should be crystal clear to you. You must always think about the purpose you intend to set for the process of digital detoxing. Is it to get better grades, get better sleep, or have more time for yourself and your loves ones? Everyone needs goals that will help to regulate and shape their detox programme. Step3: Gradually reduce your screen time. Start Small, however, if the notion of going offline proves too daunting, it is best to ease into it by gradually cutting down on the amount of time spent on the screen. Use apps to monitor usage. For instance, you can use Screen Time, a feature available for iPhones and iPads or the Digital Wellbeing feature on Android phones.

Step 4: Create Tech-Free Zones: Design zones of your living space that are ‘technology-free’, particularly the bedrooms or the study zone. Develop defined instances in the day when you avoid the use of digital devices such as during breakfast or while eating. Step5: Engage in Offline Activities: Eliminate most of your time spent with media products and instead fill your time with things that don’t include the use of media products. Consider physical exercise and get signed up for the school’s athletics teams, go jogging, or do yoga. Inculcate Hobbies including reading printed books, cooking or any activity that doesn’t imply screen use. Get personal/face-to-face with friends and family members instead of constantly communicating with them through the phone or via the internet.

Step 7: Practice mindfulness and meditation: It is recommended to engage in mindfulness exercises on a regular basis for the purpose of improving your ability to pay attention and decreasing the compulsive need to glance at your devices. Step 8: Regularly assess your progress. How performant are you? What problems are you experiencing? In order to make the plan more suitable to your lifestyle and fulfil you purpose, the plan must be modified.

Foster a Balanced Digital Life🌱

Contrary to considering a digital detox as the act of eradicating all digital devices from one’s existence, it seeks to achieve an optimal use of the gadgets for the benefit of the users. Always bear in mind that the aim here is to moderate your online behaviour and not the other way round.

Dr. Saumya Sharma

Assisstant Professor (Selection Grade)

Department of Management & Commerce

Generative AI is a field of artificial intelligence that aims to create models that can create new data similar to the training data provided to them in terms of the structure and semantics. They learn the underlying patterns and structures of a specific dataset and utilize that information to produce new, synthetic examples. Given its somewhat gradual innovation over the past several decades, the development of generative AI has accelerated dramatically more recently. The adoption and growth of generative AI have significantly influenced various sectors and altered the technology and creativity ecosystem.

The future of technology, creativity, and society is being developed through generative AI in fields with the capacity to impact how we generate, engage with, and think about everything around us. A variety of generative AI techniques are slam-dunk on the table so far :

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs): GANs were introduced in 2014 by Ian Goodfellow and his coworkers. Generative Adversarial Networks comprise two neural networks, the generator and the discriminator, which play a game against each other. The generator generates realistic data samples while the discriminator attempts to distinguish between real and phoney samples. The GAN’s test of authentic materials aids it in developing an improved response. This gives the neural networks a fighting chance of producing an output that is progressively more realistic.

Variationally Autoencoders (VAEs): VAEs are a generative model that learns a probabilistic distribution of the input data. Unlike GANs, which sample from the input distribution, VAEs learn to encode input data into a latent space and then decode it back into a realistic sample. VAEs are well-noted for their diverse and controllable outputs.

Autoregressive Models: An autoregressive model is generated from data a single point at a time, based on the data generated up to that point. Autoregressive models, of which PixelCNN and PixelRNN are examples, generate sequential data such as images by predicting the likelihood of each element given its prior.

Transformer-based Models: The transformers, initially created for tasks dealing with natural language, have also been transformed for generative functions. For instance, GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) can produce a logical and coherent text that is based on a particular prompt or input information.

The contribution of Generative AI to different aspects of life such as technology and economy among others cannot be underestimated. In the education field alone, the Generative AI comes up with several promising use cases such as personalization, content creation and learning experiences, and therefore, is able to impact the society in different ways. Here are some examples :

Personalized Learning Materials: Generative AI can design the learning materials which are specifically adjusted to the individual student’s needs and preferences. An instance of this can be that, it can create the quizzes, exercises and study guides according to the learning style, progress and the area of strength and weakness of each student. 

Content Creation and Curriculum Development: Teachers can make use of generative AI to produce educational content, for instance, textbooks, lecture notes, and so on. These AI-generated materials are adjustable to the specific curriculum standards, grade levels, and subject areas, thus they help educators in saving time and resources.

Language Learning and Translation: Generative AI-based language learning platforms can generate a vast number of lesson materials of different kinds-such as interactive lessons to dialogues – that allow students to master a foreign language conveniently and effectively. The same way the activities contribute to the learner’s comprehensive levels. Nevertheless, AI-based translation tools eliminate the communication obstacles arising from the multitude of languages and so they guarantee the easy comprehension of educational materials.

Tutoring and Virtual Assistants: Outside class hours, Generative AI is able to offer students support in their studies as a virtual tutor or assistant. The application of AI technology through chatbots and virtual assistants ensures provision of real-time feedback plus detailed explanations on any question, topic, or recommendation related to assignments and personal study needs— which significantly enhances learning outcomes with individual students based on their unique requirements.

Content Generation for Adaptive Learning Systems: Generative AI can create content for adaptive learning systems that automatically modify the pace, the level of difficulty and the subject of instruction as per each student’s performance and understanding. AI-generated content can be kept up to date and improved by the feedbacks and learning analytics and thus it can be easily modified.

Simulation and Virtual Laboratories: Generative AI-run simulations and virtual laboratories give students the opportunities to learn subjects like science, engineering, and medicine in a hands-on manner. Students can do experiments, investigate concepts, and resolve problems in a safe and interactive virtual environment, which in addition to the classroom-based laboratory learning, will be of great help to them.

Creative Writing and Storytelling: Generative AI can be a source of inspiration and creative skills as it provides writing prompts, story starters, and character profiles for the stories. Students may turn the AI-generated content into the starting point of their own creative writing projects, which will enhance their imagination and expression.

Educational Games and Interactive Experiences: Generative AI can be utilized in the creation of educational games and interactive environments that develop the student’s interest in immersive learning through games and other interactive activities.

AI algorithms are capable of producing such game levels, scenarios, and challenges to the degree that they are suited for each student’s skill level and learning objectives. With the help of Generative AI technologies, teachers can make the learning process more interesting, individualized and efficient, thus students of all types and learning styles can enjoy the learning.

Besides, AI-powered tools and platforms can be used by teachers to improve the educational outcomes, to monitor the student’s progress and to offer them the assistance that they really need, finally improving the learning achievements in both formal and informal educational settings.

Picking the appropriate college or university is among the most crucial decisions that you will ever make in your journey through learning. It is quite overwhelming considering that there are thousands of institutions with so many programs across the globe. Before you lose yourself completely in confusion, relax; let us help you navigate through the application process easily by considering some important things about admission requirements and preferences taking it step by step so as not to miss out on anything essential for choosing rightly according to your individual needs. In this blog post we shall discuss what comprises those vital aspects for..

Before you jump to researching about college, ensure you think of your academic and personal tied to it, and maybe other life-related ones before. It could be things like:

Academic interests and career aspirations: What topics are you captivated with? What career paths are you thinking about?

Location options: Do you select city or rural settings? Are you open to studying overseas?

Campus lifestyle and community: What sort of campus surroundings do you thrive in? Do you choose a big, numerous university or a smaller, near-knit network?

Financial issues: What are your finances for tuition, living expenses, and other charges? Are you eligible for scholarships, grants, or economic useful resource?

Clarifying your goals and priorities will assist you narrow down your alternatives and consciousness you seek on universities that align along with your values and options.

Once you have got a crystal-clear view of expertise, your dreams and priorities, start gaining knowledge of universities and packages that meet your standards. Consider factors consisting of:

Academic popularity: Look for universities with robust applications in your vicinity of hobby and a music document of educational excellence.

Faculty expertise: Research the qualifications and research interests of college participants. Are there professors whose paintings aligns along with your pursuits?

Program offerings: Evaluate the curriculum, path services, and possibilities for studies, internships, and experiential studying.

Campus resources and centers: Consider the supply of libraries, laboratories, student support offerings, and extracurricular activities that decorate the student enjoy.

Alumni and placements: When you go to the college, make sure that you look into their alumni network as well as profession offerings services (this is a page where placement process prices, internships and so on).

Please, pull up information from online of new and old higher learning institutions pages, interact with higher institution students, university rankings as well as reviews. Additionally, indicate where the number of colleges that you feel is reasonable amongst potential colleges and visit the colleges physically or participate in online/real life functionalities that illustrate campus life in relation to community on this ground by booking campus trips, which are inclusive of in-session tour.

Finally, when you visit an institute, it is important check the campus centers and amenities. The selecting process for colleges is heavily impacted by financial considerations. Several factors need to be evaluated for selecting the institute/ college/university and financial aspects is a key factor as you need to take care of tuition fees, hostel charges and other miscellaneous expenses. 

In nutshell, choosing the best institute/ university must be a wise decision that will decide your academic career. Evaluating all aspects important aspects as discussed above including career objectives, interests, preferences, campus key points should be done very thoughtfully and carefully. One such institute that can fulfil your dreams into reality is near by you, The Northcap University, Gurugram. The NorthCap College will not only mold your professional and academic future but will also offer you a life-changing and rewarding experience that will equip you for success in a changing and interconnected world.

Dr Bharti Arora

Assistant Professor (Sel Grade)