When You Just Want to be Alone

In the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic, Rebecca Bloomwood tries desperately to avoid a certain creditor who is trying to track her down to collect the money she owes his business, which, of course, she doesn’t have. At one point in the movie, Rebecca creates a ringtone for this man that says, “Do not answer this call, it’s Derek Smeath,” to help her avoid the embarrassing phone calls. In one of the funnier parts of the movie, the two characters happen to be in the same elevator together when Derek attempts to call Rebecca, only to hear the ringtone as his quarry leaves the elevator. Well, in today’s world, there is now an app that can help people avoid others, without resorting to clever ringtones.

Split

This new app is called Split and considers itself the “antisocial mobile app.” It was developed by Split Tech after the creator, Udi Dagan, ran into two different ex-girlfriends in the same evening, which created the kind of tension that most people would want to avoid. The Split app uses GPS technology, as well as information from social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Foursquare, Highlight, Social Radar, and Tinder to locate the position of people in your contact list and help you to avoid them. You have the ability to tell your device and the app to “avoid” certain people to prevent running into them by accident.

Which Way Do I Go?

Once you have selected the “undesirables” from your contact list, you can use Split to scan your vicinity with GPS technology to discover whether any of them might be near your location. Perhaps you might want to avoid an ex-girlfriend like the app’s creator, or perhaps someone else you might want to avoid at that time, but you don’t want to rely on your senses to warn you fast enough. Once this app locates the people, it will not only tell you where they are located, but also point out the direction you should flee in order to avoid the confrontation. The app will do this using GPS technology to help you find the fastest way to avoid who you want to miss.

Anti-Social Media – Split joins a growing list of Anti-Social Media apps and media. Here is a list of others:

·         Antii-Social: Blocks certain social media sites that are known time-wasters

·         Cloak: Does some of the same tasks Split does, but only uses feeds from Instagram, Foursquare, Twitter, and Facebook.

·         Anomo: An app designed to allow you to control what people learn about you on social media sites.

The Anti-Social App Made Easy

With so many apps and social media networks established to help people connect, this is one that really works hard to help you avoid people. The GPS technology feature is a nice touch to help you find your escape routes. It also allows you to figure out just how close you are to those you want to avoid, in order to help make sure you can continue to avoid them later on. There are additional features and add-ons that can also help alert you to who the person is with to help you avoid that person, as well, if only for that occasion.

Additional Benefits

There are many other things this app can do to help you avoid people. The app offers real time alerts using GPS technology to continue to scan for those on your avoid list. Split can alert you to the fact that you might be attending an event where the person you hope to avoid is also attending. It will keep track of “Danger Zones,” where the person you want to avoid has tended to hang out. You can look at where you plan to be to see if there is anybody there before you arrive. You can also figure out who is associated with the person you are avoiding to help avoid that person in the future.

Avoidance or Stalking?

There is, however, the potential for using this mobile app in an undesirable way. While the purpose of the app is to help you avoid certain people of your choosing, it could conceivably also be used to “stalk” the person of your choice, since it tells you where certain people are and who they are with. The developers believe only about 1% of the apps users would do this, but it may be cause for alarm, nonetheless. GPS technology has both the ability to allow us to do things we never thought possible, and also gives us the ability to do things we never should do.

Are there people you want to avoid in your life? Chances are good that there are. Now you have an app that can use GPS technology to keep you away from anyone you need to. There are just times in your life when you want to be left alone, when you don’t want to bring up old memories or failures. Split can help you achieve this goal by making sure you can hide as much as possible to avoid those awkward confrontations.

When You Just Want to be Alone