App Warns Phone Users About Negative Message Content

The idea of the app is to make sure users are not caught off-guard by angry or hostile messages. Ultimately, the application is designed to provide warnings about negative messages that are hitting a phone's screen from various sources, including Twitter, Facebook, IM and regular SMS. When warned, users may be able to handle their stress much more effectively, the scientists said. Conclusively, the app is called "Stress @ Work".

By monitoring words and phrases, the app color codes incoming messages as green for positive, red for negative and blue for neutral so a user can see what content they can expect before opening a message. According to the researchers, the software works "faultlessly no matter what each phone's computational power and memory were." They said they are now working on a release that will be offered free of charge on Google Play. There was no word on whether the app will also be available for iOS.

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Douglas Perry is an author and journalist from Portland, Oregon. His many articles have appeared in the likes of Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, The Oregonian, and several newspapers. He has covered topics including security, hardware, and cars, and has written five books. In his spare time, he enjoys watching The Sopranos.