‘Real life sort of friendship’: Nudge app launches at Rice

By Hope Yang     3/4/25 10:39pm

Nudge, a social media app created by McMurtry College sophomores Ben Rubin and Yining Zhang, launched Feb. 24. Rubin and Zhang say the platform aims to promote in-person social interaction and authentic sharing. Nudge currently has 300 users. 

Nudge was designed in response to infrequent interaction between users on other social platforms, Rubin said. 

“It feels like social media has become more about passive consumption rather than active participation,” Rubin said. “Nobody really posts anymore … It feels like you’re just scrolling content, and we wanted to come up with a solution to that.”

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Zhang said that this problem is because in-app friendships often do not reflect day-to-day friendships.

“On Instagram, you have hundreds or even thousands of followers that you don’t really interact with on a regular basis, and that creates this pressure for you when you post, to perform to this audience,” Zhang said. “That felt unnatural and doesn’t reflect the real life sort of friendship we have.”

The two main features of the app are the “nudge,” or collaborative post, where users can post pictures when they are physically together by tapping their phone, and a 10 day time limit for friends after a nudge, where posts from expired friendships are blurred out, Zhang said. 

“With Nudge, you can meet with your friends more often and socialize,” Zhang said. “This also removes any barrier to posting because people seeing your posts are people you actually meet up regularly in person.”

There is also a five minute time limit to post after a nudge, according to Rubin.

“The nudge was inspired by BeReal’s kind of post,” Rubin said. “We tried to capture the informal nature of their posts because we realized that that’s what was making social media authentic … People weren’t carefully curating their posts.”

Jamie Stewart-Aday, a Nudge user, said that he enjoyed the in-person element of Nudge.

“Any other social media app I’m using, I’m just using it by myself and seeing what my friends have been doing by themselves,” said Stewart-Aday, a McMurtry College senior. “But with Nudge, what’s unique about it is that you use it by being in person with other people, and when you’re scrolling you see who your friends were with and what they were doing.”

Nate Dominitz, Rubin and Zhang’s suitemate, said that he was one of the alpha testers before the app launched and saw many improvements.

“It was pretty bare bones when we first got it,” said Dominitz, a McMurtry College sophomore. “I know me and some of my friends started leaving suggestions, like new features, and they added a photo diary, like a calendar. You can scroll back through and see all your nudges and posts from every day. And also they added streaks … A lot of cool features the past few weeks.”

Rubin said that the biggest thing he and Zhang learned from creating the app was to listen to user feedback. 

“Listening to users is the most important thing because I feel like that’s how we’ve been able to keep improving and get it to the state that a lot of people like so far,” Rubin said. “That’s just been through constantly interviewing people … and doing exactly what people really want out of it.”

Dominitz said he likes the intimacy of using Nudge compared to other social media platforms. 

“I don’t really post on Instagram … I feel like there’s a little less apprehension to post [on Nudge] because you just know the close friends you see pretty often and also the collaborative aspect of it,” Dominitz said. “The actual action of putting your phones together and the names pop up on the screen and you press ‘nudge’ is actually pretty enjoyable.” 

Zhang said that he can see that his friends in McMurtry post more on Nudge than other social media platforms. 

“We’re able to see … people just using [Nudge] naturally without us even prompting them,” Zhang said. “Their usage is probably higher than both [founders].”

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