Social media app helps people avoid friends

Social media has long been marketed as a way to stay connected with other people - but now there's an app to help you avoid your friends.

The aptly named "Hell is Other People" uses data from location tracking service Foursquare to calculate an "optimally distanced location" from your friends, highlighting various "safe zones" to ensure you don't bump into them.

Scott Garner, developer of the anti-social app, told the : "I actually really hate social media. I had to sign up for a social media site and talk to people to get them to be my friends on that site so that I could avoid them."

Hell is Other People, dubbed "an experiment in anti-social media", is named after a quotation taken from existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre's play .

Garner admits the app is partially a satire, but adds that it is also a commentary on his disdain for social media and an "exploration of his own difficulties with social anxiety".

"I often have difficulty interacting with people, and moving to New York City last autumn was very overwhelming for me. The fact that the idea resonates with so many people just shows that I'm not the only one feeling this way," he said.