Social media has changed the way we interact with the world around us. Its constant growth is obvious, with new social networks coming to our desktops every second. Described as a “discovery engine”, Stumble Upon is really just a fancy form of Wikipedia, but that doesn’t mean it’s one to push aside.
Signing up to the smart phone app takes a matter of seconds. Like many new apps, you can choose to sign in using your Facebook account, but if you opt against this it is still quick and easy to sign yourself up.The main focus of Stumble Upon is to select your interests. After you have done so, you are shown countless pages of content to either “like”, share with your friends or make your own “lists” that can be referred to at a later date. It bares a mild resemblance to the Twitter account “Ubër Facts” but is personalised to your own interests and therefore erases the element of time wasted looking for content that doesn’t necessarily interest you.
Stumble Upon also provides endless hours of procrastination no matter what the age. Whether you’re putting off exam revision or delaying those all important work deadlines, the networking site allows for maximum time wastage and minimal effort. Whether this is beneficial or detrimental is of course, open to debate!
The site acts in ways that are similar to Google, as you aren’t only provided with websites but you can be linked to photos and videos that may also be of interest to you. Although this poses the question as to what makes Stumble Upon any different to that of a search engine. It would seem just as easy to “Google” something; a saying that is surely due an official space in the Oxford dictionary.With this being said, the social networking aspect to Stumble Upon is arguably what separates it from Google or Wikipedia. By sharing and making lists of those all-important pages, you are able to refer back to them without having to trawl back through billions of search engine results.
The “like” and “dislike” buttons are not only to show your appreciation or dissatisfaction for a page, but the site uses this to determine which pages should be recommended for you and which pages are being voted as useless junk. This adds another personalised element to the already tailored application.
Stumble Upon is definitely worth the download if you want to kill some spare minutes or even just to break up the day. Quite simply, you never know what fascinating facts or intriguing stories you may stumble upon.
