a glimpse into my iPad and iPhone

Technology has become a huge part of my life for the past year and even though I still use a paper diary, everything else has become electronic for me. Books are now on my Kindle, I don't own a clock - my alarm is set on my phone; I don't have a TV - I catch up on iPlayer or use Netflix and I even use electronic flashcards alongside my physical ones. I'm not sure if all of this is a good or bad thing but I am definitely enjoying the convenience.

I'm guilty of being an all-round Apple user now. My phone, tablet and laptop are all Apple products and I don't see myself deviating from this theme anytime in the near future. My old phone was an Android which became ridiculously slow after a year (I've had my iPhone for two years now and it is just as fast as it was when I first got it) and my old Windows laptop overheated too often for my liking. Anyway, I thought I'd let you all into my phone and tablet secrets and show you some of the apps I have installed and why.

The homepage of my iPad looks like this. At the bottom are my most used apps - Mail (I frequently send emails to myself when at uni or when I've found a great resource for something I'm studying about so that I can look it up later on my phone/tablet/laptop), Safari, Medscape (for looking up the various conditions and their key features and treatments, etc), Reminders and iBooks (where there are a few textbooks and useful PDF files).

There are other productive apps installed too - Pages, Numbers and Keynote are all installed, as is iTunesU.

One regularly used section of my iPad is Entertainment. As you can see, I have quite a few television-related apps on there. Facebook is important during term-time as important notices to do with my course are posted on a group on there.

Quizlet is an app that I use to make electronic flashcards. I make them online on the Quizlet website and then this all transfers to an app which I have installed on both my phone and tablet. Best of all - it's free! This makes the app ideal for my daily commute or for those few minutes where I'm waiting for the bus in the morning or evening.

My phone is laid out in a similar fashion - I'm a big fan of categorising my apps so that the home page does not look too messy. One thing that separates my phone from my iPad is Snapchat and Whatsapp - two mediums I use to keep in touch with friends.

Snapchat has done a lot of my friendships a world of good as many of friends are abroad or live a considerable distance from me. Being able to just take a simple picture, whilst on the bus or of what my dinner consists of that evening, has led to short catch-up conversations every so often. It also lets me update my friends on what I'm up to and they also do the same back.

Whatsapp is great as two of my closest uni friends don't use an iPhone so sending pictures or other media can become a frustrating prospect if it wasn't for Whatsapp.

As I said earlier, my phone is also my alarm clock...

And I also note down things on it whilst at uni and don't have a pen to hand.

Having technology to hand means that I also have a range of medical apps at the mere touch of (literally) a button too. There are medical apps which are quizzes so can be integrated into a revision regime and there are apps for reference and also ones designed as clinical cases to be worked through.

All in all, my phone and tablet have been invaluable aids to my study and my life in general. Without them, I wouldn't have got up in time to catch my bus each morning or even been entertained by hilarious TV programmes such as 'Orange Is The New Black'.

Have you found yourself as dependent on technology as I seem to be? I'm actually going to buy an alarm clock now as what if there's a power cut and my phone doesn't have enough battery to wake me up?!