These days of spectacularly gloomy news just might be getting you down. If you’re looking for an antidote to the “If it bleeds, it leads” media mentality, a do-good iPhone app might be just the thing.
Called “Boom Boom!” it’ll feed you a diet of good news and shared acts of kindness to go – whether its adopting endangered tigers or the fact that one of your co-workers always wears a smile, no matter what.
The free app is based on a feel-good game called Boom Boom cards, which has 26 acts of kindness that you (or your kids, or teens) perform and keep track of.
They’ve nicknamed the mobile version “Everyday Boom Boom!” (sounds vaguely like a 70s funk anthem) and hope it will encourage more acts of kindness on-the-go. The name is reminiscent of “boomerang” the idea is that your quotidian acts of small kindness – maybe you put a few coins in a parking meter or paid someone’s bus fare when their electronic card was on the fritz – will come back to you.
Nice idea, though I’m bit weirded out at the undercurrent of bellicose language they use to promote it (you’d expect more of a goody-goody feel?) about “agents of altruism” “instigating change” and celebrating “any underground act of guerilla goodness” or “clandestine kindness.” It all sounds a little pushy.
What do you think?