Brandonites develop anti-distracted driving, pro-posture app

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Leaning on technology to fight against bad posture, Brandon physiologist Mike Petrowski’s new smartphone app aims to correct the effects of chronic phone usage and curb distracted driving on our city streets.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/10/2018 (1986 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Leaning on technology to fight against bad posture, Brandon physiologist Mike Petrowski’s new smartphone app aims to correct the effects of chronic phone usage and curb distracted driving on our city streets.

Petrowski, who works at Rejuvenate on Victoria Avenue, has spent the past few months working on TextRite, an app that forces the user to hold his or her device at face level, preventing any craning of the neck or what some may call “text neck” or “tech neck.”

If the device isn’t held at the right angle, the phone will lock and prevent the user from accessing it.

Mike Petrowski, right, and his business partner with TextRite Tannis Ortynsky, owner of Rejuvenate in Brandon. (Michael Lee/The Brandon Sun)
Mike Petrowski, right, and his business partner with TextRite Tannis Ortynsky, owner of Rejuvenate in Brandon. (Michael Lee/The Brandon Sun)

Developed by the Brandon-based software and website company BYTE=IT, the app will be released for Android devices through Google Play this weekend.

“The majority of what I do for a living is I try and get peoples’ posture back,” Petrowski said.

“Everybody in their day-to-day life does things forward — carpenters, computer workers, massage therapists — everybody is always doing stuff forward. Nobody does those things to move the body back into a correct position.”

Being the “posture guy” at Rejuvenate, Petrowski knows first hand how bad peoples’ posture can get through their everyday phone use.

He said using your phone incorrectly can result in muscle shortening, affect blood flow and the activation of nerves, and create a hyperkyphotic curve in the spine, otherwise known as a hunched back.

Petrowski expects the app to be popular with parents who want their kids to have good posture, teachers who don’t want their students using phones in class, and employers who might want to limit their employees’ phone use.

Partnering with Petrowski on the endeavour is Rejuvenate owner Tannis Ortynsky, a former high school teacher at Crocus Plains who has witnessed the effects smartphones have had on young people.

“It was huge,” she said. “They’re not as productive as they could be, same as in the workplace.”

But while the idea for the app began with changing peoples’ posture, Petrowski realized that using the phone in the car meant bringing it up into full view of other drivers and even police.

He then realized the app could serve a dual function, by locking itself while a person is driving, using the phone’s built-in GPS.

Mike Petrowski hopes to launch his new phone app TextRite on Google Play sometime next week. (Michael Lee/The Brandon Sun)
Mike Petrowski hopes to launch his new phone app TextRite on Google Play sometime next week. (Michael Lee/The Brandon Sun)

When a person reaches a red light, the app will trigger a 30-second countdown before the phone can be unlocked. By then, the traffic light will most likely have turned green, leaving no time to check your phone while in the car.

This feature is something Ortynsky believes could save lives and the app’s release comes just as the provincial government plans to increase fines for distracted driving.

Beginning Nov. 1, drivers caught using a cellphone or other hand-operated electronic device will be subject to a three-day roadside licence suspension for a first time offence and a seven-day suspension for a subsequent offence within 10 years.

As part of the suspension, Manitoba Public Insurance will collect a $50 licence reinstatement fee from suspended drivers, on behalf of the government.

Fines will also increase to $672 from $203, while demerits for careless driving will increase to five points from two for each infraction.

A news release from the provincial government this week said distracted driving was the lead cause of collisions causing serious injury in 2017 and increases the risk of collision by nearly four times.

Thirty people died and 184 people were seriously hurt last year because of distracted driving.

Ortynsky lost a niece two years ago near Winnipeg in what was believed to be a distracted driving related accident.

Although it wasn’t the main reason for why she chose to back TextRite, she said it was a factor.

Physiologist Mike Petrowski at Rejuvenate in Brandon. Petrowski plans to release a phone app for Android that locks your phone while driving and corrects your posture. (Michael Lee/The Brandon Sun)
Physiologist Mike Petrowski at Rejuvenate in Brandon. Petrowski plans to release a phone app for Android that locks your phone while driving and corrects your posture. (Michael Lee/The Brandon Sun)

“I really liked the idea when Mike presented it to me and coming from two different aspects —the health aspect approach, as well as the driving and texting, or driving and being on your phone, period.”

One catch is the app kicks in while you’re in a vehicle, regardless of whether you’re the driver, a passenger or on a bus.

But Petrowski will be the first to say that the app is not made for convenience.

“Unfortunately, this is a parental control,” he said. “This is a tool to help with the obvious problems that we’re having with all of these new smartphones and such, so a sacrifice needs to be made.”

» mlee@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @mtaylorlee

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