Two graduate students recently released a phone app that would allow Georgia State students to silence their phones automatically upon walking into class.
James Don Carolis and Hanna Farah created Elevate, which silences phones and changes the wallpaper once the app is installed. This happens when an individual is in a class, a lecture or a work setting.
As soon as they exit those environments, their phones automatically return back to original settings.
Carolis said he noticed students have ringtones and wallpapers that occasionally contain inappropriate language. He also said that the students forgot to silence their phones and didn’t have time to change the settings before entering class or work.
He said that this could have potentially embarrassed the student if their professors or classmates noticed, so he began to work on a way to help avoid those situations.
“I remember one time, myself being in a class, and I couldn’t remember where the hell the thing was, and my phone [was] ringing and ringing and I can’t find it anywhere before it finally stops ringing. I think I’m out of the woods and then it starts beeping to tell me I missed a call,” Carolis said.
Carolis decided to create this app because people use their phones in multiple settings today. He said he has friends who tend to party hard when they have free time, but these same individuals know how to be professional when the time calls for it. Elevate allows them to manage their phone in both personal and professional environments.
“It’s this dichotomy in people. People should be able to have fun and be professional without being limited in personalizing their phone,” Carolis said.
Arabia Palmer, a Georgia State freshman, said she doesn’t think the Elevate app would be useful to her because she doesn’t worry about what is on her phone.
She also said she only uses instrumental ringtones on her mobile device, but Elevate could minimize the distractions that occur when someone’s cellphone goes off during class.
“It can help as far as limiting the distractions of professors who are in the middle of a lesson and students who are taking a test,” Palmer said.
Dawana Owens, a Georgia State senior, said she thinks a lot of students will download the Elevate app once the word gets out. Owens said it’s something that will benefit a student who might forget to silence their phone before a class.
“I think it will benefit a student mostly for the sound,” Owens said. “I know I forget sometimes to switch my phone to silent mode.”
Owens also said that phones going off during a class seem to annoy professors who are teaching; most professors stop teaching and look around when a student’s cell phone goes off during their class.
“It will be a benefit to the professors if students have this app because it wouldn’t be so distracting if the student’s phone went off during class,” Owens said.
Carolis plans to make sure students have all the information they need about Elevate by offering a student from Georgia State an internship with his company.
He said the intern would market the app in Atlanta and help users with any concerns.
Students interested in the internship position can go to Georgia State Career Services to pick up an application, according to Carolis.
