COOL APPS: Timehop

This is the first in a series of posts on my favorite mobile applications. Click on the tag “cool apps” for more posts.

Now that I’m officially in post-grad life, I have time to rekindle more fun blog topics. And another thing I’ve had more time to do is regularly check social media and Internet applications, now that I’m the happy owner of an iPad mini in addition to the iPhone 4S.

Earlier this summer, a few of my friends recommended I check out an app called “Timehop,” which connects your Facebook, Twitter feed, phone photos and news to provide a tailored “This Day in History” to your own life. It extracts this selection by showing you this information as a daily wrap-up, and how many years ago each photo or social post was. You are even able to share the posts as a link on social media, adding commentary to how much you miss it.

My first skepticism to downloading this app was the narcissistic Millennial stereotype. “Look at me, I’m so cool, I did this!” came to mind, and to some extent, that’s true. But what I learned after a few weeks of checking it out every couple of days was more importantly, seeing what I posted online and was doing in past summers motivated me to maintain an exciting life after college.

I’ve been lucky to have my three summers of college were spent doing things I really enjoyed. After freshman year, I interned at Project Mexico, traveled the East Coast and broke my arm in Chicago. After sophomore year, I studied abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina, became as proficient in Spanish as I could be and had my first apartment living experience there with three amazing roommates who are still my friends. After junior year, I took advantage of what Chicago has to offer by exploring downtown after work, interning for the company I will begin a full-time job with in just a few weeks. So posts from all of these have been what have come up when I open the app’s daily wrap-up.

Since Facebook has been around for so long now, Timehop even extracts events from high school—whereas Twitter posts are more from the college years when the outlet launched. So “This Day in History”’s are actually incredibly interesting. For example, on May 29, GBN (my high school) had our senior Spring Fest and it showed pictures from that. The next year, I was recovering from going to four concerts (Ludacris, Nelly, Guster and Glee) in five days. Two years ago on that day, I was at lunch with the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of South America, and last year—I was starting work.

How is that not motivation to do something cool on May 29 of this year?  The same thing happened the other day when one day in July, my sisters and I went skydiving, and two years earlier, my Argentina friends and I were touring wineries in Mendoza.

Although it might just seem like another free app clogging your phone, Timehop inspires me to plan fun adventures and continue this explorative, traveling college lifestyle for the next couple of years.