I tried the app that wants you to touch grass
Plus, some thoughts on Vine compilations and archiving digital content.
This weekend, I tested out the screen time app Touch Grass, developed by Rhys Kentish, which I had seen on Product Hunt and in TechCrunch. It’s pretty intuitive: You select which distracting apps to block, and to unlock them, you quite literally have to touch grass.
When you try to open a blocked app, you’re prompted to tap a button, which then sends you a notification (it sounds more complicated than it is). That leads you to a screen in the Touch Grass app, where you have to go outside and touch grass to unlock the distracting app.
I tried to bypass it by putting my hand on my laptop screen with an image of grass, but that didn’t work. It also seems you have to actually *touch* the grass with your hand—or foot? (I didn’t try that)—for it to work.
I’ve tried out a lot of screen time apps before, usually with mixed results. It usually goes like this: I set an ambitious goal for limiting screen time, follow it for a few days, then find myself inconvenienced and just delete the app altogether. Touch Grass joins a larger set of screen time apps that use the language and imagery of nature. Forest, Opal, and Flora are each centered around Pomodoro-style focus sessions.
The reaction to Touch Grass seems generally positive, although some Redditors were put off by the pricing (and shared my urge to just delete the app when inconvenienced). It’s free to download, and you can get one free "skip" per month—for when you just don’t want to or otherwise can’t go outside to touch grass. After that, you can buy additional skips on a sliding scale, choosing a price between 99 cents and $9.99. The app states that 50% of skip revenue goes “towards planting real trees” via partnerships with rewilding charities in the United Kingdom. The free version lets you block up to two apps, while the premium version ($2.99/month or $29.99/year) allows for unlimited apps and provides more in-depth screen time reports.
It’s a cool idea, although I’d need to try it for a longer stretch to see if it would "stick." I can see how it might be frustrating for people in, say, a city office setting who can’t necessarily get outside at a moment’s notice. Nevertheless, I love apps and tech solutions that make us think more critically about our digital lives.
Vine lives on through YouTube video compilations
Although Vine died in 2017, many of its most popular videos have lived on through YouTube compilations posted over the years. Watching some recently, I was surprised by how many I remembered, even though I was never a heavy Vine user.
Two quick thoughts:
Vine created a shared vocabulary and set of references—brought up frequently in online contexts or IRL conversations. Iconic Vine phrases were often the subject matter for stickers on Etsy and Redbubble. While the earlier years of TikTok saw certain trends reaching across the entire platform (especially during the spring and summer of 2020), it’s since fragmented into countless communities each with their own language, references, and main characters. Individual memes or trends are less likely to be widely recognized across a platform’s user base—although there are some breakouts every so often (hawk tuah!).
Much of our easy access to old Vines today is obviously thanks to the YouTube creators who’ve compiled and uploaded them over the years. But of course, this access relies on another, ultimately impermanent, social platform. I’ve noticed a lot of growing interest across my feeds in creating more lasting archives of digital content. This problem is something everyday users will likely grapple with more and more as platforms evolve.
Online ↔ offline culture
Last month, I made a TikTok tracing a short history of online memes/phenomena that spilled into the offline world (think Storm Area 51, the Josh fight, and of course the celebrity lookalike contests). Here’s that video!