Drunk Mode app allows you to say good-bye to drunk dialing
You wake up Sunday afternoon feeling like the bars got the best of you.
Your keys and wallet have disappeared. You texted your ex. It’s safe to say that last night won.
As you ponder the loss of your belongings and the “I miss you” message, you suddenly remember a saving grace: you turned on Drunk Mode.
Drunk Mode is a new app that Ohio University students can download on their smartphone to turn a messy night of drinking into a night they can forget.
Trent Kusar, a junior studying management information systems and marketing and Drunk Mode’s campus rep, said when the app is turned on, the phone numbers students have selected to block are temporarily deleted from their contact list for up to 12 hours.
Those numbers cannot be retrieved until the timer has expired, unless the user solves a math problem.
The app also has a feature called “breadcrumbs.” When the app is on, it tracks the user’s location and provides a play-by-play of a period of drinking by location.
“I also think students will find it as a sexy alternative for ensuring their bros and girlfriends are taken care of and are safe. Call it Sexy Safety, if you will,” said Joshua Anton, the app’s creator, in an email. “Call it ‘Sexy Safety.’”
This month, the app reached more than 70,000 users and is climbing in the rankings on Apple’s app store, Anton said.
Turning on Drunk Mode isn’t completely anti-social. When the app is on, it shows friends of the user his or her location. Push notifications can also be sent to friends telling them the user’s location at a party, bar or elsewhere.
The app has a send location feature called Find My Drunk. With this friends can track each other’s location via GPS. This feature promotes safety among the young adults using the app. Anton said the idea behind the app was not to tone down a student’s party behavior, “but simply to make it more convenient to be safe.”
“I think student’s will fall in love with the idea and the app,” Anton said. “We as Drunk Mode did just that. Built by students, for students.”
The app can be downloaded anywhere, but OU is the first university in Ohio “to have the app” and the first in the Midwest to have a campus representative, Kusar said.
OU’s has a reputation as “a huge party school, making it the ideal environment” for Drunk Mode, he added.
An online campaign was launched on Monday to raise money for further development of the app.
The goal is to raise $50,000 — with five percent donated to HelpSaveTheNextGirl.com, a national non-profit organization with the goal of sensitizing “young women and girls to predatory danger.” The rest of the money will go to funding the app.
Finding local transportation, recovering lost SnapChats and locating nearby parties are new features Drunk Mode’s developers are looking at, Kusar said.
Anton said his goal is for Drunk Mode to become the new YikYak at OU and after its popularity is recognized, the app’s creators can reach out to the university, local businesses and others to localize its usefulness in Athens.
“The app was a great idea and I am definitely glad I got it,” said Eben Flournoy, a sophomore studying music management. “I always wake up with no regrets from the night before and no sent texts to my ex.”
To donate money or learn more about the app, visit www.indiegogo.com/project/preview/8e80e69a.
lp511312@ohio.edu
