More than a year after she began using Pinterest for her job, freshman public health major Kayla Peck said she continues to use the website for her day-to-day life. Peck said she uses the website to make her life easier and more convenient.

“When I worked at a doctor’s office, my boss told me we needed creative ideas for decorating,” Peck said. “I was looking across the web and came across Pinterest. It was completely free; all I needed was an email address to have an account. I tried it out and before I knew it, I was looking up everything.”

Peck said she uses Pinterest for everything from recipes and workouts to quotes and motivational ideas.

“My favorite part would have to be the healthy recipe section. I can get on really quick before a trip to the grocery store to look up something simple and easy,” Peck said. “It lists all of the ingredients I need with just one click, so it makes my life much simpler.”

Pinterest is a visual discovery tool created in December 2009 by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp and is currently managed by Cold Brew Labs. The social media website started as an invitation-only site, but opened to the public in 2012 according the Sydney Morning Herald.

“Pinterest is the place to plan the most important projects in your life,” founder Silbermann said at the Altitude Summit Conference in 2012.

Paige Beach, freshman theater studies major, uses Pinterest to manage and organize projects and crafts she is working on.

“I knew some friends that used it and I had heard about it, so I wanted to use it for inspiration,” Beach said. “My favorite part is how easy it is to stay organized. You can create your own board of topics, that way, you’ll know exactly where something is if you need to find it.”

Beach said she uses Pinterest for inspiration on sorority crafts and fashion.

Senior applied communications major Marina Nasonti said she likes that users can personalize and organize pins to their liking.

“My favorite part of Pinterest is that I can personalize my boards to fit my specific interests,” Nasonti said. “For example, I love clothes, so I have an entire section filled with different pictures of outfits I like that others have posted.”

With Pinterest, users can search, like and pin items they find that they like or want to share.

“On Pinterest, you can search for your favorite things such as tattoos, quotes, clothes, recipes and decorations, and pin them onto a specific board of your choice,” Nasonti said. “You can also add or remove pictures and adjust them to your own liking. Pinterest allows you to follow your friends and see what pictures they are currently looking at.”

Pinning is a term Pinterest users use to describe the way ideas are shared on the website.

“Pinterest works basically by people documenting everyday information,” Peck said. “If something tastes good, worked well, didn’t work well, helped, made worse or turn out pretty or ugly, you can share it with the world.”

Peck said she has learned a lot from using Pinterest. She said she has learned to make her own cleaning supplies, how to save money, how to decorate, how to cook and how to do certain workouts. She said all college students should use it.

“The worst part [of Pinterest] would have to be when you reach the bottom of the popular section,” Peck said. “When there is no more to scroll through, I become sad.”

Contact Lindsay Miller at [email protected]