Over 80% of students unlikely to scan a QR code

There really is too much friction in your average use-case for a QR code for it to work, in my opinion.

See code, decide to look at it, fire up app on phone, take picture, wait, oh a boring website link guess I won't use this again in the future.

For things like the Korean subway shopping experiment (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJVoYsBym88) it works because you can shape people's interaction much better.

Making these useful is what will help adoption. Right now, they're only being used for marketing purposes. I really like coffee, but I'm not so passionate about it that I will take out my phone, perform seven taps, and watch a bad marketing video about it.

One can imagine useful scenarios though. A microwave which scans the QR and sets the desired cooking time. A little magnet on your fridge which, when you hold up a product to it (empty milk carton) adds that product to the shopping list on your smartphone. Things like this could be useful to the end-user and to marketers.

Most QR codes are tied to advertisement. I assume most students ignore them so they will probably not bother with all the energy required to read a code. Engagement will probably be higher for more valuable information.