'Anti-social' app to help you avoid friends

A new smartphone app that can inform you where your friends are and suggest best possible routes to avoid them has been developed by a US student.

The app named "Hell Is Other People" utilises FourSquare a location-based social networking website for mobile devices - to track check-ins made by friends to determine the best routes and areas to avoid them.

The experimental anti-social media app was created by Scott Garner, a graduate student at New York University, 'ABC News' reported.

The Web app is simple to use. First, a person connects his or her FourSquare account through "Hell is Other People."

Then, the Web app conjures up an avoidance map. The map contains orange and green points. Orange points indicate check-ins by other users, and green points represent "optimally distanced safe zones," as suggested by the app.

James George, NYU adjunct faculty member, said his final assignment required students to create a system that enabled individuals to behave a certain way.

"I thought it was an amazing interpretation of that idea," George said.

"I think Scott was resistant to doing group projects throughout the class. He was like 'No, I do not want to rely on other people. He was able to turn that personal anxiety and channel it into the concept of that piece," he said.

The thought of an "anti-social media" app may seem ironic, but Garner said the initiative isn't as ridiculous as it seems, the report said.

"In some ways, social media and on-line media are kind of anti-social in that you are interacting in a virtual space.

Some people retreat to Facebook in place of personal interaction. It's something I am trying to explore," he said.