Notification after notification many students begin to wonder why their phones are blowing up. As the school year began, students began eagerly sharing their schedules in tradition, but this year a new way is presented to students when sharing their classes.
In 2018 then-high school student Dylan Diamond and his cofounder Max Baron set out to create a calendar app specifically for high school students. The Saturn app was built specifically for high school students to track their schedules and share their classes with their peers.
The Saturn website claims to be “the only calendar capable of supporting the complexities of the high school day.” Within the app, students have access to features such as countdowns, tasks, and events.
Regardless of all these features, Saturn has received some recent negative publicity in the media as well. Many news networks deemed the app to be “unsafe” as students were receiving inappropriate messages, cyberbullying, and revealing private information.
Diamond and Baron responded by updating the app. “We’ve released a new version of Saturn–our second in a week–that raised the bar for security,” said the students in a post made to their website.
After the update, the tension surrounding the app seemed to die down. Common Sense Media, a site used by parents often to check the safety of entertainment for kids, says that the app is relatively safe for high school students. “Although there are community guidelines and privacy policies in place, like many other social media apps, Saturn doesn’t always prevent bullying, foul language, or other inappropriate behavior,” said Common Sense Media.
On another site frequently used to ensure safety for kids, Bark says “If your child is older, Saturn may be okay to download. But for younger kids the dangers are numerous.”
As for the function of the app, students have mixed feelings about how useful the app is. “I’ve used Saturn and it was cool seeing who was in my classes before school started, but after that, it was completely useless,” senior Nicholas Nanna said.
Students have also expressed that the app can be useful for managing their workload. “I have used the app Saturn and I find it useful to track my assignments,” junior Felicity Banner said. “I use the calendar to track all of my homework and tests.”
“I don’t feel that there is anything unsafe about Saturn, it’s just a place where you can see your classes, who’s in them, and talk to them,” Nanna said.
Banner also agreed that she hasn’t experienced anything unsafe. “I think it is safe for student use as long as people are responsible, as there is the chat feature,” Banner said.
“I think it gained popularity this year because it was a way to see the whole way in your classes,” Banner said. Whether the app is safe or not is still up for debate, however, Saturn allows students to share their schedules virtually unlike other apps, and has some useful features for high school students to access.
