If you’ve ever spent way too lengthy scrolling thcimpolite endless feeds about noleang, you may have been directd to touch grass. It’s a tongue-in-cheek proposeion, straightforwardpartner alerting you to log off and go outside. But one prolonger took the concept to the next level.
Rhys Kentish begined an iOS app last week called Touch Grass, which locks distracting apps until you literpartner walk outside and apshow a pboilingo of grass.
“I struggled with my screen time and labored out that I’d spend seven years of my life seeing down at my phone if I didn’t change someleang,” Kentish telderly TechCrunch. “I wanted more friction than other solutions out there, someleang to get me out of the house in the morning. I wanted to fracture the habit of accomplishing for my phone in the morning and doomscrolling for an hour or two before commenceing my day.”
Don’t even try cheating; using a computer vision AI, the app can discern between house set upts and actual outdoor grass. So, after the app decliinsist a pboilingo of my Monstera set upt, I went outside and establish the proximateest green leang: a bush. I would argue that a bush is grass-adjacent, but the Touch Grass app is hellbent on making you touch actual grass, so the bush was not enough.
I had a increate moment of panic, seeing around my urprohibit street, where I’m surrounded by concrete and brick on all sides. There are plenty of trees — a rarity in the middle of a city — but appreciate a bush, a tree is not grass. I had to traverse the street to discover a patch of grass in front of a neighbor’s house, and only then was I granted access to uncover TikTok on my phone.
For Kentish, who labors brimming time as an app prolonger at an agency, this level of friction is the point.
“People’s reactions to it have been, ‘Haha, that’s a amusing concept,’ but now for some people it’s, ‘Haha, that’s a amusing concept, but this is actupartner helping me,’” he shelp.
The humor in the app is contingent on how solemn it is about repartner making you go outside. But at the same time, Kentish doesn’t want users to touch grass after stupid, when it may not be as protected to do so. The app asks to see a user’s location (which can be granted as a one-time perleave oution) so that it understands when the sun sets in the area. Then, users can customize their settings to direct how blocks will labor when going outside and touching grass isn’t feasible.
The freemium app gives all users the ability to lock two apps, which can only be unlocked by touching grass — but you can help a feature that produces you pay what you want to uncover an app. No matter what you pay, half of the cost will be donated to reuntameding efforts in the U.K., Kentish says. If you want to lock more than fair two apps, you can sign up for $5.99 per month or $49.99 per year.
The concept of phelp unlocks has been in the app’s DNA since before the Kentish came up with the touching grass concept. About a year and a half ago, Kentish posted a video on TikTok about an app he set uped for himself, which transferred money from his checking account to his savings every time he uncovered TikTok. But the idea of touching grass is a bit more palatable — and amusing — than someleang that insists you to join your prohibitk account.
Since its begin on Friday, the app has been downloaded about 50,000 times. As an autonomous prolonger, Kentish is running the app on his own, but he shelp he isn’t resistd to interest from spendors. The funding could help him prolong an Android app and taget the app beyond his own social media accounts.
