'Delhi's air pollution may be as bad as smoking 13 cigarettes per day'

The air pollution in Delhi has worsened to the extent that the outdoor activities are discouraged by the Delhi government as part of its health advisory issued on Sunday. The advisory has asked users to stay indoors as much as possible, especially during the morning and late evening hours. Now, a new app called 'Sh**t! I smoke' is available to download for Android and iOS users. The app states how much harmful the level of air pollution in your area can be and compares the damage it causes to your lungs with the number of cigarettes smoked. We briefly used the app to see how it works and what all results it has to show.

The moment you open the app for the first time, it seeks permission to access your phone's location to show results for your surroundings. However, you can deny the location permission (How to control app permissions on Android) and search for specific areas, towns and cities. For example, you need to enter the name of your city or town in the search bar, and it will pull the data accordingly.

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Air pollution in New Delhi

Upon searching for New Delhi, the app showed the pollution may be as bad as smoking 13 cigarettes on a daily basis, 90.9 cigarettes on a weekly basis and 389.7 cigarettes on a monthly basis. It also showed the pollution level PM25 AQI is 336. It calculates one cigarette per day as the rough equivalent of a PM2.5 level of 22 μg/m3. Try the app and see for yourself. You can search for any city or local area you want. The app is conceptualised and created by a developer who goes by the name Amaury Martiny.

Meanwhile, you can also share results with your friends on WhatsApp and other messaging apps, as well as social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The app is currently available in beta.

"The feature of displaying weekly and monthly cigarettes is in beta because the results may be highly inaccurate," the app developer says on the app. "For the full feature, we plan on having access to a database that contains the history of PM2.5 of a location."