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This App Texts You Like a Nagging Parent to Stop Drinking

“Do you have work tomorrow? What time do you intend on going home?”

You went to the pub with every intention of having a quiet one—three pints max and then home in time for a quick episode of Love Island before bed. But before you know it, you're onto the fourth round of beers and those early-morning-run plans you had for tomorrow are straight out the window. Instead, you'll spend the next day slyly popping paracetamol at your desk and cursing your lack of self-control.

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But there could be a way to help moderate your boozing. Researchers at Victoria University in Australia have developed a new app that aims to curb excessive drinking by sending users texts like a nagging parent.

Named Mobile Intervention for Drinking in Young People (MIDY), the smartphone app was announced today as part of a wider initiative to stem binge drinking among Australian students. It works by sending users an hourly questionnaire during their night out, in which they are asked to rate their alcohol consumption, spending, location, and mood. Based on the answers, users receive tailored texts, such as "Do you have work tomorrow?" and "What time do you intend on going home?" encouraging them to slow down or stop drinking.

After a pilot programme received an 89-percent response rate to the hourly questionnaires and positive feedback from participants, a two-year research project involving 300 Victoria University students will now monitor the effectiveness of the app. Lead researcher Dr. Tim Corney gave more information on the study in a press release: "We've seen promising results with a growing number of health promotion programmes that use a targeted approach to shift the expectations, beliefs, and social norms around alcohol culture. The research will focus on the effectiveness of targeted interventions for a group whose members have been widely associated with high-risk drinking and alcohol-related harm in recent years."

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The Victoria University researchers aren't the first to use smartphone technology to tackle drinking behaviour. There are already several apps out there aimed to help people cut down on drinking, including AlcoChange and alcohol charity Drinkaware's online alcohol-tracking tool. But can an automated text really make you put down that pint or stop chugging Chardonnay?

MUNCHIES reached out to Oxford Brookes psychology lecturer Dr Emma Davies, whose research explores ways of reducing alcohol consumption among young people. Davies told us that she isn't convinced apps and texts can change drinking habits.

She said: "Digital interventions offer advantages over face-to-face interventions because they have the potential to reach large numbers of young people outside of clinical settings and relatively cheaply. However, at present there is little evidence that such interventions are actually effective in reducing drinking. And sometimes people are motivated to behave in the opposite way to an intended intervention—so called 'boomerang effects.' This means the app could increase drinking rather than reduce it because of 'psychological reactance' to the message."

Davies continued: "Our research with student drinkers, for example, suggests that rather than solely targeting the individual drinker, via such apps, we should focus more on the wider social practices and customs associated with drinking. At university, this might mean trying to make some changes to what happens in freshers' week. In one study, we are looking at the possibility of introducing 'sober raving' and other alcohol free music events, to see if this has the potential to bring about changes in overall consumption."

But for now, if you find yourself unable to resist the lure of a second glass of rosé, we suggest bookmarking this page. It'll make dealing with tomorrow's hangover a whole lot easier.