iPhone app to rate ugliness may traumatize kids

By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 26 October 2010, 22:32 IST
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New York: An iPhone application called the 'Ugly Meter' has come under heavy criticism for critics opine that it is capable of harming the self image of kids and teenagers. It is now easy to harass the bully those who are very conscious about how they look. The app available at 99 cent evaluates the symmetry of a person's face by using facial recognition and ranks them in the order of 1 to 10. While a 1 is equivalent of the person not being ugly, a score of 10 spells out that you are ugly. Though adults are mature enough to understand the tongue-in-cheek humor of the app, the young people may take the results to their heart and unwillingly become victims of bullying, say critics. "There's a fine line between teasing and razzing one another. And this is just hurtful. It could have crushing blows on kids with low self-esteem. There's just nothing good that could come from an app like this", said Dr. Gwen O'Keeffe, who wrote Cybersafe: Protecting and Empowering Kids in the Digital World of Texting, Gaming and Social Media. However there have been no comments from Apple so far.