Ai Image: : Abraham augusthy / the peninsula
Doha, Qatar: Phone applications allow users to optimize their smart device and thoroughly enhance their user experience. They allow chat, social media accessibility, banking, and a plethora of other uses.
Applications also allow smart device users a way to utilize their free time productively, away from the distractions of the many mindless entertainment options available.
Why over-indulge in TikTok for instance when instead that time spent scrolling could be better invested in an app like Duolingo?
Duolingo is the premier language learning app, the most downloaded language learning application in the world. It offers over 40 languages and is perfect for language learners who are just beginning.
The application utilizes fun puzzles and other innovative methods to both teach and test users.
Duolingo is a great tool for learning new alphabet, acquiring basic vocabulary, and then putting both those things into practical use for everyday scenarios.
Another app that offers great returns on free time investment is SketchAR.
Many of us admire great works of art, and recognize great beauty in them, as well as the skill that go into making them. Many of us also wish to create art. To do so, one would need to practice.
Most great artists have been schooled in an academic fashion, and had to pay hefty tuition fees to master sketching and painting.
SketchAR is a free smart device application that is perfect for beginners. One very important feature available in SketchAR is its interactive augmented reality feature wherein the user’s phone camera is utilized to project a figure onto a piece of blank paper.
After positioning the phone over the blank canvas, the user can then trace over the figure and transfer it to the real world.
The app offers more than just the interactive tracing feature, as it also explains the different planes and shapes that go into making the figure, so as the user traces, they understand the process behind sketching, and that making a sketch is all about building one solid figure out of many different, much smaller shapes.
It’s not only art and language learning that a smart device can offer. Productivity can also involve games, and this next app is dedicated to one of the oldest games in the world.
Chess, from Chess.com, is the world’s number one app for chess enthusiasts. It lets users create an account, and then links them with other chess players from all around the globe. As the user plays and win, their ranking goes up, and can even gain recognition among the world’s best chess players.
Norwegian chess grandmaster and five time world champion Magnus Carlsen, current world champion Ding Liren from China and current contender for world title Dommaraju Gukesh from India are all Chess app users. Users can review their most recent games and study their every move and strategy.
The application also boasts an incredible learning feature in which you learn as you play. Users can learn about different opening strategies, review hundreds of years’ worth of classic games interactively, and test their knowledge in puzzles tailored to the user’s proficiency.
The puzzles are highly addictive and many in number, each specifically designed to test the user’s awareness of not only how the pieces move, but also why they should move.
Chess is a very cerebral game, and scientific studies have shown that playing chess helps build up the brain's cognitive reserves, which helps retain the brain’s normal function. All six areas of one’s brain are put to work when playing a game of chess.
One still has to be mindful about of time spent on their smart device, and make changes accordingly in one’s lifestyle in order to benefit most from leisure time. In order to have leisure hours, there must be smart time management.
RescueTime is an application that works in the background and requires no effort from the user whatsoever. It catalogs online use and shows the user the amount of minutes spent on applications and websites on their smart devices daily.
Users of RescueTime can also receive weekly reports detailing how much time they’ve spent on different applications and websites.
RescueTime can help confront one’s own lack of productivity by having an honest, unbiased look into their online habits. It not only offers insight, but also helps take action.
Users can decide which apps or websites to block or restrict access to using RescueTime, and thus gaining spare minutes that could go into more productive endeavors.
Although there is no shame in using the time available away from work for fun or entertainment, but overindulgence closes the door on other options available during free time that could lead to better results for the brain and the psyche.
Learning a language, picking up an art hobby, stimulating your brain with chess are all among the wonderful alternatives that our smart devices offer us, all within our immediate reach.
