# The Commons: Students — user reviews > 77 indexed App Store user reviews of The Commons by The Commons, Inc., rated 1.30/5 from 230 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-commons-students/id6746174591/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-commons-students/id6746174591.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 12 · 4★ 3 · 3★ 2 · 2★ 4 · 1★ 209 ## What do users think of The Commons? Overall sentiment: negative **Pros** - 💡 Helps students focus on school work **Cons** - 🚫 Blocks access to social media and communication apps - 🔒 Privacy concerns with VPN and data tracking - 🐛 Causes issues with phone functionality - 🤬 Perceived as an unnecessary and intrusive app **Commonly reported bugs** - VPN doesn't work properly when traveling - Slows down messaging and other apps **Most requested features** - Allow access to certain apps during school hours - Improve VPN functionality when traveling - Provide more transparency on data collection and usage ## Newest reviews (16 of 77) ### 4/5 — At last a good experience *2026-07-21, version 1.1.7* I use The Commons app last year. It didn’t work that good. I’m testing it this summer as a student council member and I actually like the experience. Distractions are completely blocked and I can track my usage data. Hopefully it continues to get better👻 ### 1/5 — Poor Experience *2026-04-22, version 1.1.5* Laggy, unresponsive, and every time it’s in use, my phone battery drains at a much higher rate than usual even though I have good battery life. I find myself bringing multiple charger packs to school to combat this poorly designed app. ### 1/5 — Poor Quality App *2026-04-22, version 1.1.5* I could complain about this being implemented in my school but I will not. I want to talk about how ineffective it is. It almost never works and only turns on when it is not supposed to. We can’t even use powerschool or google apps which makes certain school tasks incredibly tedious and inefficient. It turns on, on weekends, when i’m outside campus, and more. I would not recommend and I am also mad they added this to my school. -John Phillips ### 4/5 — App quality *2026-04-21, version 1.1.5* We have been piloting this new app at our school. Overall it has helped alongside a strong policy rollout. App reliability has significantly improved with their last upgrade. Hoping it continues to show improvements ### 1/5 — Horrible app *2026-04-20, version 1.1.5* I hate my school ### 1/5 — Bad app *2026-04-20, version 1.1.5* Horrible app, never use this ever ### 1/5 — i don’t like it *2026-03-13, version 1.1.5* i don’t like it ### 1/5 — IF YOU ARE A SCHOOL DO NOT USE THIS APP! *2026-03-12, version 1.1.5* It’s honestly useless and it makes the problem worse. Punishing students for their app not working when it’s not their fault. ### 1/5 — absolutely not *2026-03-11* Everyone hates it. We cant even send pictures? Like what’s up with that. I don’t even know why my school has this app, we can’t even have our phones in class so really there’s no point. ### 1/5 — Disappointed with lack of quality *2026-02-11, version 1.1.4* Just an absolutely garbage app. Turns on randomly on weekends, uses up more phone battery than watching a netflix movie, and yet, still is unable to know whether I’m in class or in the north pole. The app oftentimes sends threatening notifications to me and my administrators, but funnily enough, does so on weekends too! Good luck explaining how I had my phone’s location services disabled while I was at 0% battery! Also, I don’t know much about the confidentiality of your data, but as a rule of thumb, never trust an app with your location. It’s your right to keep your data private and you shouldn’t be forced to deliberately send your data to a chinese database selling your information, all in the supposed name of “social media addiction”. ### 1/5 — No *2026-01-05, version 1.1.4* No ### 1/5 — I hate this *2025-12-11, version 1.1.4* sucks ### 1/5 — drains battery *2025-12-02, version 1.1.4* at the end of the school day it’s says i’ve been in my phone for 5 hrs and my battery has dropped down to 5 %. it also tracks your location at all times. deleted immediately. ### 1/5 — Stupid idea *2025-11-19* This app doesn’t even work. It tracks my precise location from my house to my school, yet it only turns off long after I left my school. It doesn’t let me send texts, and turns off everything on my phone, thus making it useless. I often need to contact people within a moments notice, and when I am on campus, I can’t do that. This app has so many problems, I’m surprised it’s not being published under the title of a prototype. They can say what they want, but this app is idiotic. The only it has reconnected my school is that we all despise it, because it doesn’t work, and is a stupid idea. **Developer response:** Thank you for sharing your concern — we want to be very clear about how The Commons works. The Commons does not track or store a student’s location. Our app uses Apple’s approved geofencing technology, and iOS is required to display notifications whenever location services are active. Apple simply verifies when a student enters or leaves a school zone and then informs our app to turn on or off. That’s it — the location data itself stays on the device and is never sent to The Commons. We built The Commons to be privacy-first, and our practices are outlined in our privacy policy. We take this seriously and encourage anyone with questions to reach out directly at support@the-commons.app ### 1/5 — gross *2025-11-07, version 1.1.4* doesn't work and creates more problems that it fixes. if you are considering this for your school, don't do it. this app makes me feel like my phone isn't my property during school hours ### 1/5 — so bad *2025-10-24, version 1.1.4* everyone hates it, it doesn’t even work well ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Bad app *2026-08-15, version 1.1.9* They say they can’t see ur location but ask for location perms. ### 1/5 — Poorly made, controlling *2026-07-29, version 1.1.8* This app just doesn’t work well at all, bans every app on my phone INCLUDING the weather app and my clock. The geofence system doesn’t seem to work so great either, since when I drive by my school it will shut everything down as if i’m on campus. I hope you rethink this sorry app and take it down ### 1/5 — Yall suck *2026-07-29, version 1.1.8* Whoever made this dogsht needs to find self worth n love ### 1/5 — strongly dislike *2026-07-27, version 1.1.8* i feel there are way better ways to limit phone usage in schools, this is simply invasive to students and their privacy and i don’t think schools should use it :( ### 1/5 — Stupid idea *2026-07-25, version 1.1.8* This app doesn’t even work. It tracks my precise location from my house to my school, yet it only turns off long after I left my school. It doesn’t let me send texts, and turns off everything on my phone, thus making it useless. I often need to contact people within a moments notice, and when I am on campus, I can’t do that. This app has so many problems, I’m surprised it’s not being published under the title of a prototype. They can say what they want, but this app is idiotic. The only it has reconnected my school is that we all despise it, because it doesn’t work, and is a stupid idea. I would humbly ask the devs to immediately remove this stupid attempt of an app ### 1/5 — Genuinely broken app *2026-07-25, version 1.1.8* The wonderful devs decided to make sure this somehow worked outside of the regular range and lock me out of my phone in my own home ### 1/5 — Ts is awful *2026-07-25, version 1.1.8* App is something you would hear an article about coming from mainland China about media censorship and digital espionage. Also why no half stars? ### 1/5 — Location *2026-07-25, version 1.1.8* I believe its ridiculous that this app should have access to my location all of the time. We are required to put it on our phone before school even starts in order to get important information for the upcoming year. There is absolutely no reason I should give this app access to my location 100% of the time as well as screen time access. Crazy. ### 1/5 — Awful *2026-05-27* They are spying on my phone, It’s not like there going to find child p*** on there so idk what they are looking for. This app locks me out on weekends and drains my battery to the ground. I would rather have a flip phone than have to install this awful app. I want my phone on the weekend. ### 1/5 — Horrible *2026-04-23, version 1.1.5* Doesn’t work my school dont even try ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — New updates *2026-07-07* I appreciate the updates to the app. New features are great and work well. ### 5/5 — Good solution *2026-05-20, version 1.1.5* This is a good solution to the phone problems that hurt students learning and mental health. ### 5/5 — Trialed at our school *2026-04-21* Overall this app reduced behavioral instances across the board - phones were a huge issue before - this has helped to make the manageable **Developer response:** Thanks for the review! We know phones can be super distracting, so The Commons is here to make school time less stressful and more focused. It doesn’t collect personal info or sell data; it just helps students stay present while building healthy tech habits. ### 5/5 — Working good *2026-03-11, version 1.1.5* Updates have improved the issues. Not so bad. ### 5/5 — Great Idea! *2025-08-18, version 1.1.2* This social media issue is such a hot topic with school districts trying to figure out the best way to comply with local policies as well as the many, and more coming, state mandates. This app is a great way for students to learn to manage their phone usage. Reading some of the reviews, it is obvious some students are not yet on board which is understandable they do not want to give up their phone time during school hours. However, this is actually a great life skill for students and adults to manage their social media time whether at school or on the job. ### 5/5 — More schools need this *2025-08-16, version 1.1.2* Everyone needs a break from their phone. We should focus while in school! ### 5/5 — Schools deserve to a phone break for students! *2025-08-16* All districts deserve to have an app like this that allows students to focus on learning again! Social media and other apps are designed to be addictive. It’s not teens’ fault that they want their devices all the time. But as a teacher, it is crippling classroom learning, driving a mental health crisis for teens, and crushing teacher morale. This app means that teachers aren’t the constant cellphone police, and students are given a break from the constant barrage of distrations! ### 5/5 — Looking to raise student engagement *2025-08-14, version 1.1.2* We’re trying out this app to help our students learn how to regulate their screen time during school hours. We’re only a few days in and have over half of our school on board. Fingers crossed we have a solution that works! ### 5/5 — Don’t want it but probably need it… *2025-07-31* I don’t like the idea of being blocked from social media during school hours…. But i know it’s something I need so that I can focus on school and pass all my classes so my parents don’t send me to summer school. ### 5/5 — Ok fine, I need it *2025-07-25* … 👻 **Developer response:** Thanks for the review! We know phones can be super distracting, so The Commons is here to make school time less stressful and more focused. It doesn’t collect personal info or sell data; it just helps students stay present while building healthy tech habits. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-02.*