Study: Students with smartphones study more often

While more teenagers and college students are utilizing tablets and smartphones in their daily lives, one study finds that students with access to these devices may be studying more often.

Based off a recent study from online student assistance site StudyBlue, students with access to smartphones study material for classes approximately 40 minutes more per week than students without access to a smartphone. This figure was tabulated from the combined data of nearly one million StudyBlue users over the Fall 2011 semester. Students are most likely to use the smartphone for studying while commuting or when at school or work.  Approximately half the students use the application to study when going to bed or just waking up as well as when standing in line. Nineteen percent use a smartphone for studying while in the bathroom and 17 percent study while exercising. 

While the study found no correlation to higher grades due to increased study time, students that use study application on mobile devices are three times more likely to track progress of grades for tests and class assignments. The study also found that students with smartphones are less likely to pull an all-nighter when covering materials as students are twice as likely to study between the hours of 6 and 8 a.m. prior to en upcoming test. However, when students use smartphones to study, approximately 40 percent of all study sessions include some form of break to use other functions of the phone. While the most common break activity is spending time texting to friends and family, other popular activities include reading and responding to email, searching for information on the Web browser, talking over the phone, checking up on social networks and listening to music.

StudyBlue is also planning to launch an iPad version of the mobile application in the future. With more college students adopting the iPad for daily use during class, the rumored version of Microsoft Office that may be heading to the iPad will be a welcome application for students to use when working on class assignments.