Assuming this is not IT-only, I'll share my thoughts as a humanities student (and prospective researcher).

For my first year in the uni, after deciding to not pursue programming professionally, I decided to go low-tech: notebooks and agenda, internet only when necessary. I definitely read more books and got more of my todo-lists done.

Then I decided I'd use the computer more, links and images were logical extensions to notetaking, and being able to hyperlink all my notes and documents was an unforegoable improvement (thank you Org-mode and Emacs, if not for these two jewels, I'd not bother using a computer for anything else than the browser).

Nowadays most of my stuff is digital, and I use some "tools" to interact with them. I research in the browser, I'm slowly getting the habit of reading shorter papers with less than 20 or so pages on the computer, almost all my notes are on the computer (with some waiting to be digitised), I use Emacs and other tools for processing all sort of data (not in the statistical sense), version control is used everywhere, from todo lists to orgs to short stories to research notes, wherever applicable (I use Mercurial or RCS generally, depending on the task).

Comparing the two ways of working, I definitely have to put up with more distraction with the digital setup, but I also know and learn more. It's hard to tame internet to not be invasive (middle finger to content websites which disable RSS feeds for pageviews, fuck you all), given most actors are actively trying to be invasive. Recently, for example, I found a reseacher whose work I wanted to follow. She had a twitter profile and an academia.com one, both platforms that provide no RSS feeds. No other profiles. Now I either have to open myself to this sort of invasive websites that are constantly trying to learn more about me and push stuff all the time, or just not follow her. And I chose the latter. But that's fucked. The business model of the internet is "we give you some stuff, often other people's stuff, pay us with your attention, and moreover we sell you to as much advertisers as we can". That's fucked, but given the utility of internet, one has to learn to put up with it, and that's not all that easy.

I do not follow live news, even with RSS. I'm subscribed to some mailing lists from newspapers and journals, weekly or daily. Other than this, I use RSS extensively. If your page does not have an RSS feed, I'll probably not follow you. A newsletter? Only when your thing is really interesting, and you post no more often than weekly. I follow youtube channels with it, so I don't have to open YT homepage and be subject to many interesting but distracing links I might be tempted to click. I do not enable notifications from anything, including mail, even on mobile phone. I decide when I want to know about the outer world: check feeds or mail manually, when I want. I use no social media. I do use Reddit, but I don't subscribe to any sub, instead, I group them into multis, and check the relevant multi when I think I need to see sth. there (and to my surprise I spend a fraction of the time I spent there in the past, even when subscribed to a handful subs, when I have a blank page from reddit.com).

The biggest distraction with computers is internet. And one needs to learn how to use it defensively. Maybe we need a "Defensive Internet Users" wiki thing?