Your Cell Phone Knows When You’re Drunk & May Be Able to Help You

Mobile phones have some a real long way since the days of the big black bag crammed into your center console with that massive handheld phone attached to a 12-foot curly cord. Today, mobile phones are our lifeline to the outside world and our portal to the most personal parts of our lives. Sure, our phones help us communicate with other humans, but that pales in comparison to all the other cool stuff they're capable of.

Our phones allow us to do our banking, keep track of our sleep and fitness patterns, navigate us around the world, detect seismic activity and predict earthquakes and even let us play Candy Crush. But what if I told you that our phones are able to do even more than we already thought possible.

According to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, the sensors in your cell phone that are responsible for things like detecting acceleration and movement are also able to determine when you're drunk. They can do this by sensing changes in your body movements and especially in your gait when you're walking. These researchers are hoping that in the next five or so years our phones will be equipped with software that not only alerts the user when they're impaired by alcohol, but can help them avoid risky behaviors while they're intoxicated.

Students are hoping that the future software will send alerts to the user to help prevent them from driving while drunk, having unprotected relations while drunk and avoiding interpersonal conflict and violence while drunk.

While it may seem a little far-fetched, think about it for a minute. Our phones already do so much to help keep us safe, why wouldn't techies come up with a way to make them save us from ourselves?