Want to go out for coffee without running into your friends and being forced to make small talk?
There's now an app for that.
"Hell is Other People" is an app for people who want to avoid their friends. Seriously.
Still angry that one of your friends spilled red wine on your new couch? Is your best friend dating your ex? Are you simply having a bad hair day and forgot your hat?
Scott Garner, who calls himself a "basically unemployable" designer and developer, built the Hell is Other People app just for that. On his website, he calls it an "experiment in anti-social media."
He noted on his site, "This project is partially a satire, partially a commentary on my disdain for 'social media,' and partially an exploration of my own difficulties with social anxiety."
The app works with Foursquare, and notes not only what places, like restaurants, stores or parks, where your friends have checked in, but the app also creates a map of your area with a "safe zone" where you shouldn't have to bump into any of your friends.
Ironically, this anti-social app relies on your friends continuously using FourSquare to communicate their every move. So, if your friends aren't super social techies and don't use Foursquare all the time, brace yourself. You just might bump into your friends anyway.
Of course, users could always friend people they don't like, just so they can avoid them, too. That might be the better idea.
This article, 'Hell is Other People' is the anti-social app, was originally published at Computerworld.com.