7 ways to use free time effectively on smartphones

Instead of scrolling through a bunch of useless information, there are many ways to effectively “spend” your phone during your free time.

Duolingo's language learning app. Photo: DUOLINGO

According to Gizmodo, you have at least 7 ways to use your free time effectively with your smartphone as follows:

1. Learn something new

Apps like Duolingo and Memrise give you a whole host of language learning tools in your pocket. While there are many different language learning apps out there, these two are considered the most popular for their fun and effective lesson designs.

Besides foreign languages, you can also read something on the web, watch a video on Youtube to sharpen some knowledge or skills you already know, such as watching a new video about programming or learning a cooking secret.

2. Donate for charity

You can also use your free time to help others. For example, with Donate a Photo, you can donate one photo per day (any photo you take).

For every photo you donate, Johnson & Johnson will donate $1 to a nonprofit organization that addresses a social issue of your choice.

Likewise, the Charity Miles app lets you donate money to charity with your miles traveled.

Charity Miles will contribute 10 cents for every mile you bike and 25 cents for every mile you walk and run after you sign up for this charity program, do it and post the results on social media.

3. Scientific support

Scientists have always relied on users to help them with many research projects that tackle complex problems, especially those that require large-scale data collection.

Among them is the Folding@Home project by Sony and Stanford University, which is collecting information from users to research major epidemics such as Ebola or Alzheimer's.

Similarly, the Secchidisk site has an app that turns your smartphone into a tool to measure plankton levels, thereby helping research teams track changes in the marine food chain.

Or the MyShake site developed by UC Berkeley uses your smartphone as a tool to measure earthquakes all over the world, thereby creating a global database, making earthquake warnings and detection more effective.

Headspace's meditation app. Photo: HEADSPACE

4. Improve spiritual life

There are smartphone apps that give you the opportunity to meditate in a moment, such as Headspace and Calm.

By following the exercises guided here, you can let your mind drift into a meditative space before returning to the hustle and bustle of reality.

5. Expand your horizons

This is similar to learning something new as mentioned above, but leans more towards expanding your knowledge in general.

Instead of wasting time with useless games, you can read the featured article of the day on Wikpedia here, or you can learn a new word of the day on Dictionary.com's app, and read summaries of fiction/non-fiction books on Blinkist.

Instapaper app interface. Photo: INSTAPAPER

6. Continue reading unfinished content

Most people don't have time to read everything they want to read, so an app that can "remember" what they need to read so they can continue reading at a later time is very useful.

The simplest way to bookmark is to choose the bookmark feature with articles on your computer browser, install a similar browser application on your mobile device, and then synchronize data on the two browser versions so you can continue reading the bookmarked content on the web.

Additionally, you can also take advantage of tools like Pocket and Instapaper installed on your phone to save web content so you can read/view it anywhere, anytime.

Get creative with SketchBook. Photo: SKETCHBOOK

7. Creativity

Finally, another great way to spend your time is to choose a creative activity to enjoy in your spare time. It could be writing, drawing, making music, taking photos, or anything else.

Choose a suitable application to support you in this creative activity. There are many such applications, search by keywords in the application store on your device.

Recommended for those who like to write like Ulysses app and for those who like to draw like SketchBook.

According to TTO