If you’re like me, you like to have fun, knock back a few drinks with your friends, and party the night away. Simple, right? Yes, this all may seem very carefree – but, shockingly, mistakes, misjudgments and social faux pas are made while under the influence. Consuming alcohol, as you may know, seems to have some kind of mysterious effect on our judgment and our ability to make smart decisions. This is perhaps the reason you can’t enter into a contract or operate a motor vehicle while under the influence. But what about when it comes to operating a phone?
Yeah, there’s an app for that. Fortunately for the tech-savvy merrymakers among us, several available mobile apps can help you avoid making those disastrous drunk-dials and texts. A couple of students from the University of Virginia created an iPhone app called “Drunk Mode,” which will block your phone’s contact list for up to 12 hours. Alerts will also go off every half hour, reminding you to drink and act responsibly and not make any bad decisions. Cuz, you know… we forget.
If you have an Android phone, you can turn to the Drunkblocker app to help you out. Simply tell the app the time you plan to start imbibing, and the time you think you’ll be sobered up. This app also lets you choose which people you want to be banned from contacting. When you try and make a call, you will be given a test to see if you have your good judgment back (or whatever judgment you had to begin with). There’s also DrinkTracker, a blood alcohol content calculator app for the iPhone. Both of these apps also include convenient maps and taxi finders for when your night has reached the spilling-out-onto-the-pavement stage.
It was only a matter of time before we developed apps to babysit and counsel us to avoid those ultra-awkward exchanges. Eventually, smartphones will probably advance to the point where they’ll know our blood alcohol content from a single finger-swipe. Drop your phone more than once within 5 minutes? Instant sobriety test. Your phone will chirrup angrily, “don’t tread on me.” Where’s my breathalyzer app?
If only apps could do all the dirty work for us. What other capabilities do we want our smartphones to have in the future? Here are some choice selections from my fantasy app-development wishlist:
- Teleportation app (duh)
- Bottle opener app
- Laundry/cooking/cleaning app
- Gas-price reduction app
- “Flush toilet” and “open door” app – never fear public bathrooms again
- “Social media agency mode” to repurpose loose content floating around in my brain and convert them into Facebook and Twitter status updates for me
- An app that creates a surrogate version of me to go on dates and talk to people
Comment below with your suggestions!
