Instead of writing traditional lists with paper and pen, technology has made it faster and easier to write holiday and birthday wish lists. The app “Giftful” has made sharing lists with family members and friends easier with its ability to provide links and pictures to desired items.
Giftful has found popularity among students who use it as an easy way to house all of their gift ideas in one spot.
“I like the app because I can easily put my gifts into one spot for my parents and it adds links for my parents to be able to easily find the item,” sophomore Avva Smith said.
Among those students who like the app, they say it is also helpful for parents when shopping for their children.
“My parents find it helpful because you can select what you already got and when you click the picture it takes you directly to the link and website of the item,” sophomore Olivia Lorimer said.
Students are recommending “Giftful” to others because they enjoy using the app around the holidays and think it is helpful, keeps themselves organized, and it helps others looking to shop for gifts for them.
“I definitely recommend it and think others should use it because I personally find it very helpful because it’s very organized and I know it is very helpful to my mom,” sophomore Ben Smith said.
The app is helping students – and parents – stay organized as items purchased from a list can be “checked off” thus preventing the receiving of duplicate gifts.
“I think it is a very efficient way to send your gift ideas to people you’re asking for gifts from during the holidays,” junior Shiloh Moore said.
Similarly, Moore’s dad, CHS photography teacher Derrick Moore, thinks the app is helpful for he and his wife when Christmas shopping.
“I think it helps my wife because she does most of the Christmas shopping, but yeah she is just able to pick it off of there and get what she needs to get,” Moore said.
Other staff aren’t as familiar with the app but still see the value in it, such as math teacher Steven Gill, who has five kids, the oldest being 13 and his youngest two being twins.
“The app sounds interesting, I don’t know if I’d personally use it but I can see why others would like it,” Gill said after hearing a brief description of how the app works.
Similarly, English teacher Carlo Iacono was also unfamiliar with the app, but had a positive outlook on it overall.
“So it’s like a registry for a wedding or a baby shower? But students are using it for Christmas and birthday gifts?” Iacono said, after being given a brief description of the app.
The app has garnered mixed opinions, however. Some view it as a way of copying and imitating others’ lists, taking out the uniqueness of one’s own personalized list. Some think the app takes away from the point of giving gifts.
CHS reading teacher Mary Damiri has two sons, ages 21 and 19, and is against using the app.
“It’s a gift, so if I’m going to purchase a gift for someone who I, hopefully, know well enough to know what to get them,” Damiri said. “So in my house, we don’t do lists. We do gifts, so sometimes it’s a shot in the dark and it’s a miss gift, but there is value in that too. I do have a friend whose daughter uses this app, and it made her shopping very streamlined and efficient, but I don’t do that.”
The app has proven to be quite divisive between students and staff, with many students finding it helpful and using it to make their gift giving season a little bit easier. While on the other hand, many staff have found it interesting, but not quite something they want to use in their own lives. Overall the app seems to have exposed a new difference between students and staff, with students seeking a more convenient solution to gift giving, and staff turning to a more traditional route.
