Many students around the United States seem to be taking advantage of their smartphones to help them with their studies. Eighty percent of Millennials own a smartphone, according to a study by Neilson.com. As it turns out, the smartphone seems to be useful among those attending college or pursuing an education. Another study by McGraw-Hill Education shows 77 percent of students who report using smartphones for educational purposes say it has helped improve their grades. Also, 62 percent said technology allows them to feel more at ease and prepared for class.
“I love Dictionary.com,” said Zheila Vizuleta, a fashion major at the County College of Morris(CCM) in Randolph, New Jersey. “I always get the word of the day.” Vizuleta also uses Pinterest to give her inspiration for new designs and to help with her art class.
Smartphones nowadays have apps for almost everything, and many students are happy about this rise in educational apps. An article by Alex Strike called “25 apps college students shouldn’t live without” lists #14 as TED.com. This app features videos from news conferences hosted by TED.com introducing educators, business experts, musicians’ and more to talk about interesting topics students can find useful. Another app Strike mentioned in his article was #25, Mint.com. This app budgets money easily by linking the bank account and tracking where money goes by categorizing different spending. This app proves itself useful because emails are sent to the user presenting simple charts to calculate the most money spent every week.
“I use Spotify to look up music for my classes, and it has a deal for students,” said Sean Delaney, music major at CCM.
Spotify seems to be making its way into the smartphones of students. The music lovers’ app offers college students an exclusive monthly subscription. Notecard app, Quizlet, seems to be taking over many education seekers and their smartphones. In an article introduced by Collegechoice.com named, “Top 15 Apps for College Students,” it shows Quizlet as #5 being an app created by high school and college students to help with studying and learning. Students can create their own notecards or use notecards already constructed by other students. Another popular notecard app is called Studyblue. In this app, students can make their own study cards, save them and quiz themselves. The app stores the notecard “deck” and randomizes them to help students study for exams. Another popular app among students is Elevate. Elevate is an app, similar to Lumosity.com, in which small tests are taken daily to help improve listening, reading, writing, speech, math and more.
Another popular app among students is called Notability, and this is an app for students who may have forgotten their pencil or paper. This app is helpful in note taking, PDF annotation, typing and recording. On top of that, students are able to attach links and photos to each of their notes. Also, tap on a word from the notes to hear it played back instantly. Now the smartphone can take in depth-notes. In addition, download Amazon Kindle if textbooks are inconvenient. Amazon now has a variety of textbooks to be sold for a great price. Some books can now be downloaded instantly on Amazon Kindle. This saves students the hassle of bringing their textbook to class, and now students can have the entire book at their fingertips. Textbooks will most likely not be needed in the hand-held form for much longer and will probably follow the newspaper in online form instead. Apps like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and more are where students are inquiring about the news from their smartphones. Sixty percent of smartphone users occasionally use their phone to look up breaking news and major events, and 33 percent only do this “frequently,” according to a study by Pew Research Center.
It seems as though smartphones are students’ new best friend and for good reason. The smartphone has proved itself useful and beneficial to many people, especially among young adults attending college. Whether making notecards, recording a lecture, finding the definition to a word or to properly manage spending habits, the smartphone is one swipe away.
