Did you make a New Year's resolution to spend less time on your phone? Because there's an app for that.

A Nova Scotia tech company wants to help people unplug from their phones in 2017, with a smartphone app that makes a game out of avoiding screen time.

The 'Put Your Phone Down' app tracks the time between when a user sets their device down and when they pick it up, and offers encouragement at various intervals. Leaving the phone alone for an hour, for instance, will earn users a congratulatory message.

Nick Brunt, who developed the game at the tech company REDspace, says it started as a way to help people focus on their loved ones over the holiday season. He said the premise is simple for participants: "We're all going to put our phone down and we're going to compete to see who can put it down the longest."

Research suggests cutting back on screen time can have a wide range of benefits for individuals, such as better sleep, more time to exercise and better interactions with friends and family.

Approximately 1,000 users have already downloaded the app.

REDspace COO Wes Gould says the app has "given back" 30 days of time that users would otherwise have spent on their phones.

"I didn't have a sense of how difficult it would really be to accumulate solid blocks of time off of my phone," Gould told CTV Atlantic. "So I think people are surprised when they realize, heck, I can't even get an hour off this thing now."

The app is available for iPhone and Android smartphones.