Just as we manage music on our computers and listen to it on an iPod, students organize their class material on laptops and study it on a smartphone. And they’re doing it more often – a new analysis of usage data from mobile study service StudyBlue indicates that mobile studying among high school and college students grew significantly during the first half of 2012.
“Students use smartphones for entertainment-focused activities such as social networking, gaming and music all the time,” said Becky Splitt, StudyBlue CEO. “But these numbers demonstrate that students are adapting their study habits to increasingly mobile lifestyles because of the benefits associated with mobile studying.”
The data show a 10-fold increase in study minutes from mobile devices over the past year, and StudyBlue mobile users are twice as likely to study as their web-only counterparts. More than 70 percent of mobile studiers utilize features such as flashcard flipping and quizzing, while just 30 percent of web users access these tools. Web-only users are more likely to limit their usage to browsing and reviewing study material online.
“It is not surprising that mobile studying continues to gain momentum. Students are simply mimicking how they manage their music libraries in how they approach studying,” said Splitt. “Students are organizing and managing their content on computers and then accessing and consuming it through the cloud with their mobile phones and tablets. This shift is driven by both convenience and efficacy.”
StudyBlue offers both native iPhone® and Android™ mobile apps. Students create and study flashcards on their smartphones with the free apps, which offer the ability to add photos, as well as text to speech directly into flashcards.
“The StudyBlue app makes studying on-the-go convenient,” said Amber Calabro, a student from New York. “I’m sure other students can relate to having busy schedules, and sometimes you need to study wherever you can – whether it’s at the gym, waiting in line or on the bus.”
Information was gleaned from student study activity across the company’s database of more than 60 million study materials during the spring 2012 semester. Comparison is based on studying data from students who used the StudyBlue Android and iOS apps on their smartphones versus students who used only the StudyBlue website.
