Art Credits: Noah Garcia and Osmany Morales
Written by: Aliane Castillo-Diaz
In our techy day-to-day lifestyle as college students, we tend to look for all our answers on our phones, from self-diagnosing ourselves with TikTok, M.D., to tracking our periods. We went from, "You got games on your phone?" to, "Are these apps beneficial to me? “What's a good app for organizing my thoughts?” “Is this app bettering my relationship?” Let’s explore some applications you may find beneficial to your personal development.
PERSONAL GROWTH
When starting college, students frequently worry about what lies ahead and wonder how to keep up in this period of their lives. Let’s look into some applications that can help you develop into a new person.
SimpleMind – Are you sick of tabs, highlighters, binders, note cards, and Quizlets? This software has many tools to help you organize your information and satisfy the perfectionist in you. This app guides you in creating a mind map to help you organize your thoughts and generate new ideas. You'll always have room for creativity and can access and synchronize them across devices.
Insight Timer – If you’re more down to earth and in need of a moment to feel your feet on the ground, this is the app for you. Insight Timer is a meditation app with an extensive free meditation library. The simple-to-use tool is suitable for both beginners and expert meditation trainees. Insight Timer also offers live activities such as yoga, mood tracking, personalized coaching, and workshops. Many of us are already aware of the advantages of meditation for both mental and physical health. All of us can benefit from some quiet, calm space for our thoughts.
FRIENDSHIPS
College is a time of tremendous personal growth, so if there is one thing that comes out of that time, it is the development of making a lifetime of friendships. You can become who you want to be thanks to your shared experiences in college and the friends you make that support you on your journey.
BeReal – A GenZ photo-sharing app minus the glitz and glams. In contrast to traditional social media, this app gives users an unfiltered look into each other's lives. Every day, you post one, and only one, photo of what you are doing in real time. It encourages us to show our friends who we really are, for one, by not giving people the chance to add filters or overthink, “Should I post it?” Our physical reactions aren’t just emotions but meaningful interpersonal connections. Like any other social media app, this allows you to capture your pictures without restrictions. Freedom, friendly fun!
Uphabit – On a Wednesday at 8:18 a.m., my phone vibrates with a suggestion to "share your knowledge with others." The push message also informs me that I have "three relationships to reach out to," containing the name of my sister in brackets, and "four new people '' to "explore," mentioning someone I previously connected with. This app contains not only the heavy scheduling of your everyday events but reminds you that family and friends are important. Reach out to them and thank the app later.
RELATIONSHIPS
Even though life might be challenging, and you occasionally feel at odds with the rest of the world, you always have people on your side. Those are the connections worth investing time and effort in, so why not keep them in good shape?
Agapé – Agapé is the new method to communicate "I love you" and will make billions of people happy. Hands down, one of the greatest free apps for couples. Agapé is a relationship wellness software that makes it simple to experience and express love! Every day, they ask you to answer a question that will ignite a meaningful dialogue. When you react, you and your partner can view each other's responses. It only asks for one minute of your time. The app has had a favorable impact on 97% of couples. Agape's inquiries are entertaining, intriguing, and occasionally hot!
Spotify – A lost art form, mixtapes died with the birth of CDs, MP3s, and other media, because, let’s be honest- expressing your love through selection and funky beats creating art in a playlist is much more work than a “wyd?” at 2 am. Some people miss the loss of this beautiful expression of love, but some post-millennial teens are using Spotify to restore our faith in humanity. “Spotify flirting,” whether it's finding songs that say specific words in the title – ‘I,’ ‘Kinda,’ and ‘Love you’; to build a foundation of love around titles. Or simply just creating a collaborative playlist that makes road trips more intimate because it’s music you share.
It is very rare to find someone in the twenty-first century that is not obsessed with social media or does not own a smartphone. Smartphones provide much more than just communication help, especially with their apps, which allow you to connect to the rest of the world. They are your partner in all aspects of self-improvement and communication. You can easily understand how applications have made our lives easier and more enjoyable. They allow you to improve your personal and social life. Take advantage of their utility and the fact that it is FREE (especially because we are college students).