Sharing your schedule with friends can be exciting, but how many people do you share it with before it becomes an invasion of privacy?
Saturn is an app intended for high school students. The creators themselves have designed the app so that you have to verify your identity using your school email. It allows students to access a platform to share their schedules, track homework assignments, and connect with peers at their school. The app was initially launched in 2018 but saw a spike in popularity this school year.
When schedules were first released, many students used this app to share their schedules with classmates and friends. However, as a few weeks passed by, the need for the app disappeared as most students found out which classes their peers were in. Some privacy issues also began to surface among students.
Within the app, students can link their social media accounts to their profiles and direct messages to other students. Additionally, the app does not require much verification, so there have been some concerns about bots and potential predators logging in and pretending to be a student in an attempt to impersonate them, or access the schedules of other students. These concerns have even led some school districts to release warnings against the use of the Saturn app. For instance, Seminole County Public Schools posted the following statement.
— SCPS Info (@SCPSInfo) August 15, 2023
While using this app makes sharing schedules easier, it also shares your schedule with every student using the app from your school. Siri Jonnada, a sophomore at Brookfield East expresses that privacy concerns are a known drawback to app users. “The app definitely invades privacy since it shows your schedule to everyone, but the students using the app also know that, and they sign up willingly, so I don’t think it is that big of an issue” (Jonnada 10).
Some students think that this app is useful and engaging to use. Sivani Adavi (11) voices that she loves this app and wishes more students would use it. “This app lets me compare my schedules with other students I am close with. It also makes it easier since I don’t have to send it to each person I know separately.”
Ava Xiong (11) thinks that Saturn is “stupid and unnecessary”. Contrary to Adavi, Xiong would prefer to send her schedules to her friends directly, as she does not feel it necessary to share her schedule with the entire school.
The conflict regarding the Saturn app resurfaces the debate between privacy and surveillance. Using social media and other devices, in general, has reduced personal privacy in ways that many individuals often overlook. Is individual privacy a necessary sacrifice? Regardless of where you stand, it is important to consider the privacy issues resulting from using Saturn in relation to the possible conveniences that it allows students to enjoy.
