NEW PALESTINE — With school called off, many businesses closed and Americans being urged to remain home because of the coronavirus pandemic, there’s likely a lot more eyeballs glued to device screens these days.
If device addiction was already an issue, it’s likely being exacerbated by the current state of affairs.
A New Palestine entrepreneur may have a solution.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]
Andrew Armour’s screen time management app, Activate Fitness, controls the amount of time users spend on their devices based on their physical activity.
The 2008 New Palestine High School graduate went on to graduate in 2012 from the University of Indianapolis, where he majored in business management and administration and minored in information systems. Today, he works as an information technology consultant in data security and coaches baseball at his old high school.
Armour said he’s always had an entrepreneurial spirit. It runs in the family, as his father is a business owner.
The seed for Activate Fitness was first planted about four years ago, after a day during which Armour spent time with his brother and his brother’s family. He couldn’t help but notice their preoccupation with their smartphones and spent the following night unable to sleep while trying to come up with a way to curb that fixation he knew a lot of people and families experience.
From there, Armour did about six to eight months of research and due diligence. He hired a development company to bring his idea to life. Armour financially backed the endeavor himself along with an investor who’s a family friend.
Free to download and use, Activate Fitness is now available in Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
“It’s something I wanted to do for free because I wanted to do everything in my power to positively impact as many lives as I could,” Armour said. “…My goal is to impact as many lives as possible and worry about financials later.”
In the app, admins define activity goals and users are rewarded with screen time after those goals are met. For example, an admin could set a goal of 5,000 steps in exchange for 20 minutes of screen time for users.
Activate Fitness integrates with apps that track physical activity like Apple Health and Fitbit.
On users’ devices, third-party apps — those provided by a vendor other than the device’s manufacturer (like Netflix or Snapchat) — are removed until users reach their activity goals set by the admin. Users can consume screen time they earn in one sitting or in increments.
Before he could launch his app, Armour and makers of apps similar to his had to overcome a hurdle from one of the biggest tech companies in the world.
In 2018, Apple announced it developed tools for helping iPhone users limit the time they spend on their devices, and began removing apps offering similar services from its App Store, The New York Times reported.
Activate Fitness was one of 17 companies that, with the help of former Apple executive Tony Fadell, successfully pressured the tech giant to permit such apps.
Armour called device addiction a huge issue that many families struggle with.
According to HelpGuide, a nonprofit mental health and wellness website, device addiction encompasses a variety of impulse-control problems.
“Like the use of drugs and alcohol, they can trigger the release of the brain chemical dopamine and alter your mood,” the website states. “You can also rapidly build up tolerance so that it takes more and more time in front of these screens to derive the same pleasurable reward.”
