7 Ingenious Introvert Apps Someone Needs To Create
Can you imagine how much better life would be for introverts if the awesome apps described below were available?
Take note savvy developers! Introverts are an untapped market in the app space.
Here’s how I imagine these apps would work…
1. The Virtual Boundary App
What It Is
This app is like those virtual fences that give the family pet a mild zap when it reaches the yard’s virtual boundary.
But where electronic fences protect pets from life-threatening hazards beyond the lawn, the Virtual Boundary app protects introverts from soul-threatening hazards of people without personal space awareness.
How It Works
The app registers when someone enters your personal zone, locks on the identified interloper, and administers a mild shock. Nothing too bad, just the electrical equivalent of uh-uh buddy, that’s too close.
There are settings for public transport, movie theatre, shopping mall, sidewalk, etc.
The app also recognises your ‘favourites’ from your contact list and excludes them from the shocks.
Or does it?
Better check your settings.
2. The Small Talk Deflector App
What It Is
This app helps secure the introvert against the dreaded scourge of pointless chit-chat.
How It Works
The app requires enabling the microphone, remains on in the background, and works by voice recognition.
It’s triggered by phrases involving the weather, questions about where you live or what you do for a living, and other generic nuggets of small talk.
Once triggered, the app emits a high-pitched shriek so that conversation cannot continue. This allows the introvert to take out their phone, make a puzzled face at the sound, and wander away bewildered — and entirely without explanation.
3. The All-Peopled-Out Safe Word App
What It Is
This app generates a faux emergency so an introvert who has reached maximum people level can quickly and safely escape.
How It Works
In the same way that Siri can be turned on by the iPhone owner’s voice, this app can be triggered by the introvert’s voice saying a pre-set ‘safe’ word.
Good safe-word choices include solitude, recluse, and misanthrope.
Any time you find yourself peopled out, simply say your safe word and the app randomly generates a benign and true-ish emergency text.
Faux emergencies include:
- A text from ‘The Office’ saying you need to come in immediately to fix a glitch-related snafu (this is true because who hasn’t had their share of glitch-related snafus)
- A text from ‘Security’ saying some unusual activity has been detected on your wi-fi (this of course is true because it’s unusual that you’re not at home using the wi-fi)
- A text from ‘Doctor’ saying your test results are in and they’re not good (this is also true because the test results are indeed not good, they’re great, as only completely made-up test results can be).
Because the emergencies are randomly generated, the introvert can react with genuine surprise as they brandish their emergency text and beat their hasty retreat.
4. The Party Avoidance Calendar App
What It Is
This app allows the introvert to dodge Tupperware parties, baby showers, rambunctious nights out, and other group activities requiring you to close your book, put on pants, and be with people.
How It Works
It is essentially a faux calendar app that has every timeslot filled with work, exercise, social events, medical appointments, coffee dates, weekends away, sky-diving courses, The Voice auditions, and sundry other engagements.
If invited in person you can simply open the app and point disappointingly at the relevant previous engagement as you shake your head sadly.
If e-vited, do not fret — see the next app idea.
5. The Party Avoidance e-Vite Autoresponder App
What It Is
This app facilitates the dodging of invitations received my email. It works in sync with the introvert’s email client, adding an Avoid Party button to the Reply/Forward options.
How It Works
Upon receiving an invitation, you simply click the Avoid Party button. This generates one of those ‘Unable to deliver message’ messages, with a whole lot of technical-looking gobbledygook relating to full mailboxes or proxy servers or whatever.
Easy. Efficient. Evasive.
6. The 5 Stages Of Cancelling Plans App
What It Is
This app helps the introvert navigate the difficult but necessary stages they must work through once they inadvertently commit themselves to plans.
How It Works
Any time plans are entered into the introvert’s calendar, the app is triggered and generates a sequence of stages for the introvert:
- Stage 1: Commitment
- Stage 2: Seeking Reassurance
- Stage 3: Mild Panic
- Stage 4: Blind Terror and Frantic Attempts At Escape
- Stage 5: Cancellation and Relief.
The introvert is prompted by pop-up reminders to check off their progress as they make their way through each of the stages.
By allowing the introvert to acknowledge their passage through these stages, the app helps the introvert to manage their psychological distress and once again find a sense of wholeness.
7. The Clueless-Walkers Bicycle Bell App
What It Is
This ingenious app helps the introvert to manoeuvre their way through sidewalks, shopping centres, in fact anywhere people wander aimlessly or inconsiderately and impede passage.
How It Works
The app is activated by double-tapping the play button on the remote, which produces a sharp bicycle bell sound. This breaks the loiterer out of their reverie and causes them to register the surprising presence of other people who also wish to use the sidewalk/escalator/pathway.
Although this video shows a low-tech, actual bike bell, it gives you a sense of how the more subtle app would work.
Originally published at LouderMinds.com