New Thrive App from Samsung can help you have a healthier relationship with tech.

“Your phone is useful, but sometimes you need to put it down”.

Smartphones have literally changed the way we live our lives.  More today than ever, we do everything with them – shopping, socialising, banking, photography, listening to and creating music, playing games, emailing, sports…even phone calls.  All of this is great but as many of us are aware, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.  You only need to look on the street, the office, a train or even a restaurant, to see how much we are all staring at screens.

The average smartphone user in the States for example, touches their phone 2,617 times a day, according to the research firm Dscout.

Sometimes we know we need to put that phone down and switch off for a bit, but a constant barrage of notifications, unwelcome distractions and not wanting to miss anything important can make that hard to do.  That’s what Samsung believe too, so they’ve partnered with Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global to create The Thrive App – to help you take back control of your time.

The new app is free and available now for Samsung Galaxy Note8 users and will soon roll out to other Samsung devices too – we expect it’ll be available on the Samsung Galaxy S9 when it arrives later this year.  Thrive lets you block all notifications (including texts, call and apps) for a set period of time, whenever you need some time out from your smartphone.

It includes an auto-reply feature which can notify your friends, family or co-workers that you’re taking a break from your phone.  You can set up an optional VIP list of contacts that can still reach you if you want, so you’re not totally disconnected from the world.  It can also limit the time you spend on certain apps, so if you’re a Facebook addict, this could be a real help.

Arianna Huffington’s Sleep Revolution book focuses on how important sleep is for our health, it’s also talks about how we need to ensure we take time out from tech and screens for the same reason.  It’s this belief that led to the Thrive app being created with Samsung and there’s no doubt this will be the first of many similar products that aim to help with your digital detox.  We’d expect Apple to have something similar to market before the end of 2018, although the iPhone does already include its Do Not Disturb mode.

Arianna wrote on Thrive Global’s blog – “If you’re a parent, The Thrive App will allow you to spend time with your child and be fully present. If you’re at an event, The Thrive App will allow you to not only capture the moment but to truly experience it. And if you just want to get some focused work done, The Thrive App empowers you to create the time and space you need to be at your most productive and creative — minus all the notifications and alerts that usually interrupt us.”

Will it work?  It’ll be interesting to see what users think.  Sometimes just switching your phone off or to airplane mode can help you stay off your phone for a bit, but this kind of app could make that switch off easier as it gamifies your digital detox and tracks how well you’re doing.

If you want to download the app, you’ll find it in the Note8’s Galaxy App store.  Samsung Galaxy Note8 users can also download the THRIVE App here.

Watch the silent video below and see what you think, will you be downloading it?

The full range of Samsung Galaxy smartphones, including the Note 8, are available now at Direct Mobiles.