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Show HN: I built an app to stop me doomscrolling by touching grass (touchgrass.now)

1203 points by risquer ↗ HN
i wanted to change the habit of reaching for my phone in the morning and doomscrolling away an hour so i built an app to help me. now i have to literally touch grass before accessing my most distracting apps

the app is built in swiftui, uses the screen time apis provided by apple and google vision to recognise grass or not

i'd love to get your thoughts on the concept.

286 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 280 ms ] thread
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duxup
This is going to be rough up north where I am, too much snow.
Gys
Dark times...
Etheryte
From touch grass to shovel snow for a while and then touch grass.
thruway516
Build startup and exit for +$20m before you can unlock your apps for the extra motivated
baranul
Valid point. Should not only be to touch grass. At least snow, sand from the beach, and trees could at least be on the list.
hmmm-i-wonder
Its all ice and snow outside. I'd be locked out for a while

Then again maybe that would be a good thing.

moolcool
I'm up in icy Canada, but a social media hibernation might do me well.
duxup
As fast as some social media circles move I imagine come spring it's possible to not understand the context of most of what is being posted.
cjbgkagh
Sounds like a good way for a temporary fix to become a permanent one.
alaithea
Hibernating? Touch Bear.

You'll never use social media again.

adverbly
Same problem here... Trying to think of some substitutions:

1. Touch snow

2. See the sun while outdoors.

3. Say hi to someone in person.

4. Text a friend or family member.

5. Touch a tree.

I think touch a tree would be the most direct substitution. Something to be said for a social substitution too though, but it probably doesn't match the initial intent of touching grass.

madmountaingoat
Of course no one needs an app to do any of this, but the general idea of getting out and touching a tree, climbing a snowbank, going out without a coat or hat for a few minutes when it's freezing are all the sorts of things that keep me happy during in the winter.
rob74
Besides, depending on your location, touching a tree might also be more hygienic than touching grass (e.g. if you happen to be in an area used for dog-walking).
ge96
Make an Instagram of tiny snowmen with different scarves
risquer
I plan on letting the user select what they have to touch, for launch it's just grass but customisation is on the way!
ewalk153
Nice idea. Would be great to have a winter mode for us that can’t literally touch grass for 3+ months a year ;)
20wenty
I like the idea but it will be hard to build a moat -- if that's something you care about. How about making it more general? "touch grass", "feel sand between your fingers", "hug a tree" ...
notachatbot123
Thank you for providing a perfect comment to reply "touch grass" to.
risquer
I'm not quite sure what you mean by build a moat, could you explain further?
tredre3
It's startup culture speak to describe something that is unique and impossible/hard to copy for competitors.

I think (hope) that 20wenty was being cheeky and playing along the all-too-common vibe that every project presented on HN needs to become financially successful or else it's a waste of time.

dudefeliciano
I love this, the internet needs more of these weird concept apps. As another commenter mentioned, perhaps this could be extended for people that don't have grass around them due to season/location? Touch snow, touch sand, etc
FollowingTheDao
"I love this app that gets me off of my phone!"

"We need more apps!"

Can we just sit and mediate and listen to ourselves grasping?

dudefeliciano
Uhm I think you misunderstood me. What I meant is that I love these trivial, fun, silly apps that make the internet more interesting. You can certainly sit and meditate whenever you want
risquer
Thanks man! I plan on letting the user set what they have to touch, it's on the roadmap!
camtarn
This is a hilarious concept and would probably genuinely help. Nicely done!

I used to have a similar issue with hiding inside all the time (during Covid times, of course) and to motivate myself to go outside, I started an Instagram of tiny little plants growing in cracks in the pavement. I tried to add a new tiny plant every day or two, which meant that I had to wander further and further afield to find a suitable specimen. It wasn't perfect, but was quite motivating.

satyarthms
I'm a connoisseur of plants growing in cracks in the pavement, mind sharing a link?
InDubioProRubio
Bricky roads They trappers grass Stony walls They trappers wind Iron stove It trappers fire Trappers is we By the works of hands And forgets us We were ever free...
CincinnatiMan
I love the irony here. Going outside into “real life” to find pictures to post on a site that keeps people inside.
Sharlin
TBH I don't think Instagram particularly keeps people inside given that >99.99% of its users use it exclusively on mobile.
bentaber
Because people don’t use their phones at home?
bdsa
More people use their phones outside than use their desktop computers outside, though
johnmaguire
"[...] the outside world, the non-digital world, is merely a theatrical space in which one stages and records content for the much more real, much more vital digital space. One should only engage with the outside world as one engages with a coal mine. Suit up, gather what is needed, and return to the surface." -- bo burnham, Inside

https://youtu.be/PSClBFUe-o0?t=26

thatcat
solid bit, but weird transition into pirate maps
johnmaguire
Inside is a feature-length movie filmed during the pandemic, definitely worth watching in its entirety if you haven't. It's incredibly creative. I linked the video at the second of three "bits" performed in a single scene. In this scene, he's pretending to be a standup comedian in front of an audience, hence the multiple jokes. Bo actually previously used the pirate joke in The Big Sick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYZ5efCcK_s
Aurornis
From what I’ve seen, Instagram is better at motivating young people to go outside and do things than video games were in the 90s or even today.

With Instagram they see their friends doing things and it’s a reminder that going outside and/or spending time with friends is fun. There’s a lot of pearl clutching about people getting jealous about other people’s vacation pictures, but on the whole the active Instagram users I know are much more social and likely to spend time outside the house than the gamers or Redditors. By a wide margin.

acyou
Is this still true though? My gut feeling is that most Instagram users are now passive, meaning they doomscroll and never post while lying in bed in their parents basement while their 20s sail by.

Not so much a stereotype as a reflection of the real people I know.

I think we used to see much more content from friends, I think the feed is now mostly content creators/ads/tiktokified, no?

lou1306
You do have power onto your own feed (well, limited power). I snooze suggestions every month and follow basically zero content creators: I'd say 90% of my followees are people I've met irl. If I want to doomscroll and feel awful, the Explore/Reels tabs are more than enough.
tredre3
> My gut feeling is that most Instagram users are now passive

That's just reflective of how the world has always worked. Most people are passive.

The point being made, I think, is that Instagram is a greater source of motivation to interact with the outside world than Reddit/Gaming is.

It sounds plausible enough to me but who knows?

slyn
May have been true when Instagram was a photos app with a chronological timeline of only the accounts you follow + a few ads. If you wanted to seek content outside of your personally curated feed it was in a different tab or you would need to search for it.

Now it’s a meme-shorts first platform that constantly suggests content outside of your follows and non-chronologically. You can’t opt out of “suggested content” pictures or videos in your feed for more than 30 days at a time and there is no option to permanently opt out. It’s not possible to opt out of shorts (reels) suggestions in your feed. It’s not possible to opt out of meta “threads” suggestions in your feed. I just opened the app and 5 of the first 11 items in my feed were sponsored ads, and 1 of the 11 was suggested “threads”.

awad
Plenty of those memes and reels ARE focused on 'IRL' activities, though. Obviously the full experience depends on your feed, but a lot of content is created and shared around restaurants/activities/vacation etc and many millennials and Gen Z find inspiration there, whether from influencers or peers.
JadeNB
I wonder how many of us picked up this habit from COVID? It definitely got me to appreciate my local flora way better, and the fact that I get weird looks for bending down to take pictures of tiny little insect and plant life is, well, let me be honest, I kind of enjoy being the neighborhood eccentric.
drivers99
During COVID I'd take a lot of walks, and in a similar way, it helped to have some kind of basically useless goal/destination in mind. For me it was checking out how construction in a nearby park was going, including what was happening in a temporary holding pond. I would send "pond updates" to my family in other states, which they found amusing. I got really interesting in all the different birds I was seeing and how the plants were growing. Now that I'm downtown, in a more "walkable" place, I don't really have the same variety of interesting natural things to see. Maybe I can think of something similar.
camtarn
Aw, that's a really lovely goal! A growing pond sounds like an excellent walking target - during lockdown I headed to my local reservoir quite a few times and just wandered around the path by its edge.

I also enjoy watching construction - I feel like in a different country and different life, I would have been an 'Umarell' (an elderly Italian man who stands watching construction sites)

chasd00
pokemon-go got a lot of people outdoors too. I would see kids walking around the neighborhood with their phones out looking for pokemon, it wasn't perfect but at least they were outside getting some air.
BigGreenJorts
I stand by the meme: that summer was closest we've gotten to world peace.
0xEF
It's still very popular in my area during the warmer weather. I don't play the game myself but it is quite nice to see, really and makes me feel a little better about my community, as silly as that sounds. When people get out and enjoy public spaces together, it nurtures a positive perspective.
mateusfreira
Can we change it to unblock only when I do 10 pushups? I would love to get that to my Nephew and Nieces phone
simondanerd
Is there an Android version coming soon?

Also it would be better if you kept Instagram uninstalled... I see it installing on the screenshot!

mikragor
Technically, the icon displays the app as paused from the time limit. Once you surpass the time limit using the app, you can stop using it or allow you temporarily (1 minute to 15 minutes or stop limiting the usage for today) to continue to use it. It's a neat option to have this on your phone, but I usually keep expanding my time limit more than just quitting the app. I think that's what this app is aiming for, allowing you to use the app more time requires more effort than 2 taps.
risquer
Soon...ish Android equivalent is hard but it is in the back of my mind!
aeve890
Wdym is hard? Hard like is harder to make apps for Android than iOS? Genuinely curious
feznyng
iOS has a system level API for this sort of thing. Android does not.
risquer
Yeah you basically need to write your own screen time api for android and use the draw over permission - it's going to be an interesting build for sure!
tcoff91
In general yes iOS dev is easier than android and especially for screen time apps
waonderer
Why don't devs use React Native like tech stack that allows development across platforms at the same time, especially for simple apps like this when they probably don't have to use all native capabilities different platforms provide.
int_19h
Because in this case a native capability is exactly what made the app so easy?
Baggie
my neighborhood is very low on grass will tree support be added? I like them better and we have a lot more of them

sincerely, Lorax

szszrk
A/B testing. You got a high difficulty variant.
BobAliceInATree
I live in the middle of Manhattan not near a park. There is zero grass near me that I would touch.
basisword
Nice idea. I feel like we don't see as many fun/whimsical apps these days as we did 10-15 years ago.
beAbU
Geolocate the user to ensure that at least the touching of a picture of grass tookplace outside.
aembleton
And then update that location on OSM as having grass
mhh__
iBeer seems so quaint now
y-curious
Check out this fake lighter app I have
vitaflo
Whimsical doesn’t make money and we are a society of sellouts.
SketchySeaBeast
Is it possible that we're not as comfortable as we were a decade ago? I'll admit to having no aspirations to make that next killer app, but that's because I'm fairly financially secure, not wealthy by any means, but a decent paying job with a pension, and I know that's a privileged position the days.
vitaflo
People always say this but it tends to be the poor broke art kids who create some crazy cool shit for the hell of it that eventually becomes commodified.
Ginguin
We are a social species living in a world where everything is commodified, and to survive means trying to find a way to exist in that space. It creates a mindset where even a simple hobby needs to somehow create profit, because everything around us requires we have and/or create money over all of the less tangible things that actually make humans happy.

Some people have the luxury of being able to step around that mindset, even if only for a little bit, but there is less and less space for just existing.

robocat
Well said. I hear my arty/crafty friends get recommended to sell their "works". Thinking of art as an investment is a scourge.

Unfortunately money is useful, even if the game of chasing it is stupid and can be doomingly addictive. Looking after it for retirement is hell and trains one to be tight or a gambler.

The worst part is that we all know other things are more important than money: most people seem to choose jobs for their invisible benefits rather than financial outcomes. Our world runs because of our internal goals rather than money. The teacher that wants to help their students. The taxi driver that just likes to meet people. The engineer that strives for perfection. Does Matt Levine write for money?

The social incentives are whacko, and the government incentives are often insane. I have some admiration for those that find a way to get the benefits of society at the lowest time costs to themselves.

We fear we live in a purely capitalist world - yet the invisible incentives (economic surplus) are what makes everything work. The danger of seeing everyone else as a money grubber, while knowing that we ourselves are driven by better motivations.

Cthulhu_
The other factor is that there were too many "whimsical" apps, which were mostly variations of drinking beer, iphone guns, or fart apps. Apple cracked down hard on those by adding rules about similar / copycat apps or low value apps.
basisword
There were lots of those. Back when you could easily sell rubbish for 99¢ making copying popular apps possibly worthwhile. But there's still latitude for creativity. I came across this[1] Mac app at the end of last year which decorates your desktop with Christmas lights. Completely useless, but very fun and whimsical. I feel like there used to be more of this. There also used to be more creativity in functional apps too when development was less focussed on metrics/engagement. I feel like even the more fun indie apps started copying the 'big guys' with complex onboarding tutorials, gamification, and upselling. Maybe it was just because the platforms were newer and simpler back then. Maybe it's rose tinted glasses :)

[1] https://simonbs.gumroad.com/l/festivitas

thruway516
But when we had fart app everyone said civilization was coming to an end
basisword
I don't think that reaction was to the existence of them - merely the fact people were parting with money for them to the extent that developers were making significant money (short-term anyway). "Drinking" a pint, or blowing out the flame on a "lighter" were both quite cool moments for people when smartphones first arrived.
bigbuppo
It was that brief window of time that ended, partly because of the iphone, that technology could be or do anything. The world of infinite possibility.

Now that costs $14.99/mo, but if you upgrade to the Pro Plus package for $23.95/mo, you get not only the fart feature, and the flame feature, but you get the flaming fart feature. Requires annual prepayment, otherwise price is $39.64/mo, excluding taxes and cost recovery fees.

hathawsh
I thought for a moment you were talking about https://whimsical.com/, which is productivity suite that people depend on for work. I wouldn't want to hear it's shutting down! Then I realized you're talking about the concept of whimsical things, not a company. Whew!
risquer
Thank you! It's a silly idea but it does actually work for me
oever
Here's a whimsical site I made a few years ago. You can look up grasses and other lifeforms and see how they are related.

https://sol.vandenoever.info/?lang=en,nl&uids=119845,135774,...

sureIy
I've been wanting something like this for a very long time. I always imagined seeing the "scientific classification" metro-style path where at some point it splits showing how far apart are two species.
FollowingTheDao
Fun idea, but not the right way to end an addiction. Making it more difficult to get the dopamine (really epinephrine) hit will only lead to more frustration and reinforce the relief when you get your reward. In other words, it only makes the reward more pleasurable.
Cthulhu_
What if the author adds some gamification strategies and awards the users points depending on how often, long, and diverse their grass-touching is, and add an infinite scroll feed of other users touching grass, which you can then upvote and engage with!

(please sign up to my onlygrass page)

gradientsrneat
Many digital addictions only work due to the fast feedback loop. If you break the feedback loop, you can break the addiction.
apriljo
What do you do in the winter, eh?
tsylba
I understand it's a meme, but you're not "touching grass" if you need the mediation of an app to do so.

It's engineer logic 101, when technically true does not mean ontologically true.

crsv
I bet you’re fun at parties.
Chris2048
I think this is understood, and the app is partly satirical.
bloomingkales
What if someone tries to cheat and just touch a picture of grass? You need to understand that the no-touch-grass people are Machiavellian.
loloquwowndueo
You’re cheating yourself in that case. Or to put it another way, if you really don’t want to comply you can just delete the app.
seafoamteal
The only person they're cheating is themselves. Any systems designed to help you curb phone addictions only work if you do the legwork and are in the mindset of wanting to improve. The systems are only guardrails to lean on when you're tired. If you decide to vault the rails, that's not sustainable in any way.
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risquer
Yeah, just echoing what people have replied but I did try put some safeguards in such as screens - if it detects a screen it won't unblock your apps
Waterluvian
I love it. And now I must make a “touching grass generator” to plug into the front of this.
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latexr
I’m curious how long it takes on average to “tap and say” 100 times. In other words, how much time must you spend to get the extra 15 minutes?
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baxtr
Great concept! However my mind started already coming up with ideas how to circumvent this like printing out a color picture of grass! Hope you can detect these fake attempts! :)
DisruptiveDave
Ya know what, searching for a picture, printing it out, and taking a pic in this app = not doomscrolling, so, mission accomplished?
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Cthulhu_
If you have no intent of using the app, why install it in the first place?

But then, the purpose is less about going out and touching grass physically, and more about being aware of what you're spending your time on. A moment of self-reflection, if you will, and whether that's you going outside to find some grass or finding where you put your colour picture of grass and turning the lights on to get a good picture of it is by the by.

NalNezumi
Awesome idea.

But knowing myself, I'll probably just end up buying a plant and put it next to my table and end up using it

woadwarrior01
Why does the app need to collect location data?
m_mueller
are you telling me it actually checks the GPS coordinates against satellite images? ....
tonyhart7
to locate user location ofcourse
SSLy
1. Information Collection 1.1 Required Permissions

    Location: Used solely to determine local sunset times; location data is not stored or transmitted
Cthulhu_
Wouldn't checking the time (which should include TZ data) and comparing it with a database be adequate or can you not get local timezone data without permissions?
busymom0
You can get local timezone data without permissions in iOS.

But I think the OP's app is using the location data to ensure you walked a few meters to touch grass and not just have a patch of grass at your desk.

SSLy
no, the timezones can be very very long north to south
andy_ppp
Presumably you don't need to let the app have access for it to work?