26 August 2026

Present 29

Where the name comes from.

For my 29th year I set myself one goal, and I called it Present 29. I wanted to get off my phone, spend more time living in the moment, and actually be where I was.

By late July, with my 30th birthday coming up on 24 August, I was thinking about how that year had gone. Honestly, I'd pretty much failed it. I was still on the apps, and I still got sucked in every time.

But somewhere in there I worked out that my phone wasn't really the problem. Screen time wasn't even the problem. It was slop time: time spent on addictive stuff posted by strangers, or generated by AI, all of it picked to keep me scrolling.

Time on my phone catching up with my mates was fine. I still needed social media for that. I just needed a version that wasn't addictive and didn't have the slop.

That's when I came up with Present, and I spent August working it out.

I named it after the goal. Present, as in here and now, and as in actually being there with the people you're with. An app for keeping up with your mates, that then encourages you to put the phone down.

BrianFounder, Present