Reading in Cars Makes Me Nauseous, but This App Helps

I get really motion sick if I try to read in a moving vehicle. And there’s a reason for that: my eyes and my sense of movement are out of sync.

At least that’s according to the CDC, which states that motion sickness “occurs when the movement you see is different from what your inner ear perceives.” Your inner ear is a bag of fluid that moves when you do so, giving you an innate sensation of movement. If you’re in a car and you’re looking at the horizon, your senses are aligned. But if you look at your phone, your senses become confused. It’s the same reason why VR games make some people sick.

The free KineStop Android app aims to help you. The app overlays a transparent horizon and a number of transparent dots all over your screen. Your phone’s accelerometer is used to move these reference points as your phone moves, helping to reduce the conflict between your eyes and your inner ear. You can enable the feature manually in the app or, if you prefer, you can set it to turn on automatically when you’re in a moving car.

I tried it, wondering if it would help with my motion sickness, and it’s surprisingly well done. Normally I can’t read for more than a few minutes without feeling sick, but the KineStop app helped me do it for longer without discomfort. I still won’t be able to read novels on a long car trip, mind you, but I can search for the next restaurant on a car trip without throwing up, and I call that a win.

Credit: Justin Pot

KineStop is completely free, although there is a $3.50 pro version that adds themed overlays, including one that makes your phone look like a half-empty beer. It’s great to support a developer, but I also think the free version will work well for almost everyone.