This App Locks You Out of Your Social Media Accounts Until You Hit Your Step Count

Find yourself mindlessly scrolling through social media apps? Want to get more steps in? There are plenty of apps aimed at helping you meet each of those goals. WeWard, a free French fitness app backed by tennis star Venus Williams, has a new feature that tries to help you tackle both at once.

On Wednesday, the app introduced "walking mode," which attempts to help you cut down your screen time by blocking select apps until you reach your personalized step count. In other words, you have to earn time scrolling on your favorite apps like TikTok or YouTube by going on walks.

The app is available on iOS and Android and already offers a gamified experience, letting you earn points by playing games and joining challenges and redeem those points for cash, gift cards or charitable donations.

If you opt for the walking mode function on WeWard, you'll be able to customize the step count you want to achieve through the in-app settings. You'll receive notifications as you walk throughout the day. It resets automatically at midnight. You can also turn off walking mode as needed. WeWard can connect to wearable devices like the Apple Watch and other third-party apps, such as Apple Health.

Read more: Quit Doomscrolling With These 5 Effective Tech Gadgets and Apps

Many people are trying to reduce their screen time and minimize doomscrolling, but cutting out apps can be difficult. Apple's screen time and the Screen Zen app are options that exist to reduce spending time on your phone, as well as tech gadgets like the Brick and the Bloom card. Getting paid to walk or workout isn't a novel concept, and already exists through apps such as Sweatcoin, Stepbet and Evidation.

According to WeWard's press release, prior to the latest feature, its users increased their walking by nearly 25% on average after downloading the app, while spending less than a few minutes a day in the app itself. WeWard says it has 30 million users in 29 countries, including the US. A representative for WeWard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Our goal has always been focused on motivating real-world behavior and improving our users' well-being," WeWard CEO and co-founder Yves Benchimol said in the release.

WeWard states in its privacy policy that it doesn't collect or sell your data and instead uses it to improve the user experience. The company says it makes money through ads and offers, affiliate partnerships, in-app purchases and a premium subscription with an ad-free experience.