What’s in your Notes app?

Photo by Lynn Dai

The Notes app — our sacred online diary, containing everything from random passwords to birthday charts. Throughout any given day, our fingers frequently hover over our iPhones’ Notes app as we debate whether to open it and furiously type our hearts out. This app knows every thought on our minds, some that we don’t dare to say aloud. 

At first glance, our notes look like utter chaos. There have been many times when we opened Notes only to find a list of random words staring back at us. Like, what account does the password “unlock” unlock? Why are grocery lists, wish lists and random drawn out math problems all on the same note? What was the password for the locked note “Untitled 33”? We couldn’t answer these questions if we tried.

But while our Notes may seem like just a jungle of incoherent phrases (which, admittedly, they are), the app is also our professional therapist, best friend and diary. Typing in Notes is basically talking to a wall, but it still brings us a feeling of warmth; it’s a safe space to let out all our built up emotions without facing any kind of judgment. The locked note titled “:(,” for example, contains multi-paragraph rants about every single detail of what happened throughout the day.

As admittedly petty people, we confess that in the past, we’ve made long lists of the names of people that wished us a happy birthday so that we would wish those people — and only those people — back on theirs. It might sound mean, but neither of us plan on going out of our way to say “Happy Birthday” to someone who couldn’t even bother to remember ours. 

OK, everyone’s done this next one at least once … or maybe it’s just us? Imagine a seemingly random set of numbers written out in long lists in increasing order on a note which has now extended almost 50 rows — 102,376, 103,101, 103,409 and 103, 998, for example. Our explanation: Seeing that guys we are interested in have left us on delivered while their Snapchat Snap score still goes up is infuriating, so keeping track of people’s Snap score has become a “hobby” that we just can’t stop. 

The Notes app happens to be our favorite online whiteboard as well. Sometimes, it just takes too much work to find yourself a paper and a pencil when doing math problems. By using the pen feature to scribble out and solve problems by using your fingers is so much more efficient than writing them down using pencil and  paper. 

We both like to keep our information private and generally don’t share too much about ourselves unless to our best friends or family. So when someone sneaks up on us while we are typing in the Notes app, our first instinct is to quickly close the app and tuck our phones into our pockets. 

It’s not like there is anything wrong with being caught using the Notes app necessarily, but we just get an uneasy feeling about someone looking over our shoulder as we’re looking at the most private place on our phones. You know the feeling you get when someone walks into your room abruptly and, even though you are doing something completely normal like fixing your bed, you still feel like you just got caught doing something illegal? Yeah, that feeling. 

But not all notes are for our eyes only. Our friend groups share communal notes with lists of random information ranging from wishlists to ideas of what to do when we hang out together. It’s fun being able to communicate random information on a shared note instead of an iMessage group chat — it’s like a Google Doc, but less formal.

Who would’ve known the Notes application had so many uses? From passwords to Snap scores to rants, this simple app stores it all in a safe space with no judgment.