5 TikTok Study Hacks That Don’t Work
It feels like everyone is learning practical tips and tricks from TikTok, but not every “hack” is worth its weight in gold. While studying during a pandemic is hard (especially if all your college classes are online), some TikTok study hacks or TikTok college student hacks can actually harm your academic progress.
Before you commit to a study shortcut, be sure you know it works. You don’t want your grades to decline or your study habits to deteriorate and demotivate you. Avoid developing bad habits or falling behind in your classes by identifying and avoiding these 5 ineffective study hacks.
#1. Using answer websites
This study hack is in abundance on TikTok, but websites that “have the answers to everything” are not a study hack. To be blunt, it’s simply cheating that leaves you poorly equipped to handle future content, projects, etc.
To be fair, finding a shortcut to answers does help you in the short-term, because it temporarily relieves you from the stress of a test, quiz, or other assignment. In the long term, however, cheating always hurts you more than it helps you. It leaves you deficient in knowledge you should have and creates gaps in knowledge that make learning down the road more challenging.
The easy thing is not always the best thing for you. It might be easy to cheat your way to an A on a test, but you’re cheating yourself more than you’re cheating the system. This “study hack” doesn’t help you learn, and it really just creates more work and frustration for you.
#2. Using video or ebook search tools
If you haven’t read the material or watched the required video, looking at the captions or searching the textbook for keywords may seem like an easy way to complete an assignment. Wrong. It creates more work for you later on.
Skimming a physical textbook, searching for keywords in an ebook, or jumping to the section in a video that shares certain terminology may help you find the right answer, but it won’t help you exercise the skills and analyze the content in a way that will help you in the future.
This habit can cause you frustration down the road when you go to write a paper, complete a test, or even prepare you for the next semester of this course (and/or related courses). Your professors expect to build on what you learned this semester, so don’t make your future harder by “getting by” now.
#3. Voice-typing in place of taking notes
This suggestion truly makes me cringe, because it completely misses the point of note-taking. (This isn’t really even a study hack. It’s not studying.) I’ve seen many videos suggesting you use voice-typing while listening to your lecture. Don’t. Please don’t.
Reviewing your notes back later will be overwhelming, because your notes will be too extensive. Creating anything out of those notes that resembles something helpful will be almost impossible. It’s just an all-around bad idea.
Note-taking itself is a studying technique. The process of actually hand-writing notes works to help you remember and recall information later on. Note-taking is a method you can use to study the material as you hear it. (For note-taking tips, read this other post!)
If you’re not taking notes, you will miss the benefit of notes. Simply sitting and watching a lecture won’t be helpful to you. (It will actually create more work for you later.) As much of a pain as it might be, taking notes is one of the best studying habits you can form.
#4. Spending extra time to create powerpoint slides
I’ve seen so many videos giving tips on creating beautifully crafted powerpoint slides. For most students in most majors, powerpoint isn’t the key to a good grade. It isn’t even the best use of your time, so don’t fall into the trap of spending hours upon hours on presentation slides.
Powerpoint is always secondary to content. Your professor always cares more about the content than the slides (the exception being if the project is solely based on the slides). Your grade typically reflects the quality of your actual presentation more than the creativity of your slides.
If you want to create beautiful, well-designed slides, start with beautiful, well-crafted content. Flash can never fully substitute for substance, so don’t spend hours of valuable time creating slides that are only a small part of your grade.
#5. Watching free online classes as a substitute for class
Free online classes can never fully substitute for a college education (and they aren’t meant to either). You or your parents are paying a lot of money for you to attend college. The average class costs around $50 per class period. That means if you skip class and watch a shorter video tutorial, you’re still spending time and not really benefiting from the $50 you (or your parents) spent.
They aren’t the best investment of your time either. Use resources like Khan Academy to supplement your class, not replace attending class. If you have a difficult class or teacher that you don’t get, make an intense effort to understand the content. (I wrote a whole post on this that you can read here.) Then, if you still feel lost, reference other videos that can help you understand key concepts.
Most “study hacks” aren’t really hacks. They’re tried-and-true methods that work for many students. You can find many helpful tricks on TikTok that improve your studying habits, but don’t believe everything you watch. You don’t want to create more work for yourself in the future.
