I loved the idea of a habit tracker that would allow me to earn rewards for something I already wanted to do, even if they racked up slowly. I was so disappointed. Not only is this app not what I hoped it would be, it likely harms mental health rather than improving it as advertised.
Aside from this fact, my device wouldn’t run the app reliably due to “bugs,” which was the reason I uninstalled it in the end. It never logged a single step, even though I set my phone to allow it. I found the app easy to use overall but frustrating with far too many ads to be the stress reliever it claims to be.
But my biggest complaints are with the format of the app itself. A habit tracker app should promote self-care and mental wellness. Playing random games mindlessly in an attempt to earn pennies toward some necessity, real or imagined, is not conducive to mental health.
The app is also completely useless as a true habit tracker because it limits the number of times you can log activities. You can only log 4 waters, 3 meals, 4 hand-washing sessions, and 4 “toilets.” There are also no options for adding your own habits.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Read on to learn why you should avoid Habit Gift from the Google Play Store.
#1 – Even the brain games are not improving your cognitive health.
While you do get points for following through with what the app considers healthy habits, you get the most coins and tickets by downloading apps and playing them through various milestone levels. Unfortunately, most of these games and apps are not really self-care. They are comprised mostly of other apps that claim to issue frequent payouts.
The very first game it wanted me to download was a word game. The app claimed that playing this game for 15 minutes per day would improve cognition. It will reward you for playing it every day for 15 minutes.
There is some basis for this claim. Anecdotal studies of Alzheimer’s and dementia patients suggest that word games, sudoku puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, and other brain teasers help retain higher levels of cognition for a much longer period after diagnosis. However, this evidence is based on loose and small clinical trials, and much more research is needed to verify whether this is the case.
In addition, Habit Gift has so many ads that I probably only actually spent 6 or 7 of the 15 minutes actually playing the game. This is hardly helpful.
Meanwhile, other researchers have found that spending too much time playing games on our phones decreases cognitive skills, attention span, and more. There is much more empirical evidence for this theory, and as such it should outweigh the benefit of word games. To truly get the benefit of brain games, you need to go back to the old-fashioned puzzle books found on the magazine rack of your local grocery or department store.
That said, almost all of the games that were available to download to earn coins and tickets are not even brain games. It’s stuff like slots, bingo, and other apps that pay you for playing games. In short, this is just another app founded on making people watch advertising, which is not helpful for mental health in the slightest.
#2 – Excessive ads are distracting, frustrating, and cause stress rather than reducing it.
We are inundated with ads everywhere we turn, especially when we spend inordinate amounts of time on our phones. All of these ads can actually cause more stress than the apps are designed to cure. This is definitely true of Habit Gift.
In truth, it is these ads that allow such apps to issue payouts in the first place. It’s really a pretty brilliant business model, though I wonder at its real effectiveness. Studies are still being done on this exploding trend, but the preliminary discussions are quite interesting. Researchers are finding that people reach high levels of frustration when they are constantly interrupted by ads. You would think that an app that claims to reduce stress would neglect to cause it.
#3 – You can’t customize it to your lifestyle.
A habit tracker should allow you to record a reasonable number of activities each day, and it should be easy to track those activities and look back to see how you are doing. Habit Gift doesn’t do any of that. It has preset habits that the app designers consider healthy, which include items from washing your hands to watching the news. There are 12 preset habits that you start off with. You get coins for completing each.
Here’s the problem. There is no way to customize this app to your lifestyle. For example, I feel best when I eat 5 to 6 times per day rather than 3 larger meals. Yet Habit Gift only allows you to log 3 meals per day. Another example I want to point out is hand-washing. You can only log washing your hands 4 times per day, the same number of times you track going to the toilet I don’t know about you, but I definitely need to use the toilet and wash my hands more times than that!
Meanwhile, you can’t add custom habits. There is a section of customized habits, but it is unclear to me how this populates. The message from the app makes it seem as though it pulls these habits from how you use your phone, but I’m not 100% sure that is correct. I only used the app for one day, and nothing ever populated in that area.
You can’t track vices that you want to eliminate either, although I expected that from an app like this.
Key Takeaways
If you have time to kill and are just looking for a way to slowly rack up some dough, Habit Gift might be worth your time. It’s pretty easy to just tap on each thing to record it, and it’s something you could do in a few seconds as you had free time. Just keep in mind that you can’t ask for a payout until you have 300,000 coins and 500 tickets, which nets you $300. This is the minimum payout. I racked up less than 8,000 coins and only had the 200 tickets they started me with after 5 hours of pretty intense “play.”
On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that anyone trying this app with mental health in mind will agree that it is simply not helpful. There are much better habit trackers out there that offer up to 7 customized habits for tracking with reports. If you know of one, leave it in the comments!
Nicky Foster @TheWordsmithKC 