It's all too easy to lose time on the internet. Scrolling through social media, falling down algorithm-led rabbit holes on YouTube, and clicking on bad news story after bad news story. We know too much screen time is bad for us, but acknowledging the problem and doing something about it are two different things.
Browser maker Opera has an idea for cultivating a healthier relationship with the web and our computers, and it's a new browser called Opera Air. Now available for Windows and macOS, its reason for being is to “actively improve your well-being” by encouraging breaks, exercises, and meditations.
The Opera Air Ethos
When it comes to improving your user experience, Opera Air starts with the basic building blocks of the browser interface: It's all round corners and frosted glass effects, and Opera itself describes it as a "minimalist Scandinavian design." (Opera is headquartered in Oslo, Norway.) It's all designed to be as relaxing and as gentle as possible—though the amount of relaxation you’ll feel does still to some extent depend on the sites you choose to look at.
"The web is beautiful, but it can be chaotic and overwhelming," says Mohamed Salah, the senior director of product at Opera. "We decided to look at science-backed ways to help our users navigate it in a way that makes them feel and function better."
To that end you've got a choice of background sounds and a choice of exercises to work with, both easily accessible from the main browsing screen. You can also set up reminders to take a break at regular intervals, and it’s likely Opera will add more over time—the current version of the browser is labeled “early access.”
To research the need for a calming tool like Opera Air, the company conducted a survey of 7,000 people across seven countries. It found that 58 percent of respondents “sometimes feel overwhelmed or stressed while browsing the web,” while 83 percent of respondents said they would like a “web browser made them feel better as they went about their day.”
Running Opera Air
The initial setup for Opera Air won't take you long to work through. You'll need to choose a wallpaper backdrop, and there are a variety of soothing images and looping videos to pick from. You're also able to import data such as bookmarks and browsing history from another browser.
After that, you get to the Speed Dial quick links page borrowed from the main Opera browser. If you've used Opera before, you'll notice some of the browser's distinctive features: The choice of workspaces on the left, for example, where you can separate groups of tabs, and the integrations with the Aria AI, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp.
The two key well-being tools in Opera Air are on the left sidebar. Explore Boosts (the flower icon) leads you to a series of binaural background beats, with names like Emotional Navigation, Focused Calm, and Creativity Boost. Pick the one that matches the mood you're looking for.
For each selection, you can click the three dots to tweak the mix. You're able to choose the frequency of the beats, the ambient sound, and the music track that all work together to produce the sounds you're listening to. (There are a multitude of combinations to go through.) You can also set a fixed time for the boost audio before clicking Start.
The other main feature here is Take a Break, which is the icon that looks like three wavy lines. You've got four options: Breathing, Neck Exercise, Meditation, and Full Body Scan (which "tunes you into your body and surroundings"). You'll be talked through each step of each exercise, and they take between three and 15 minutes to complete.
Click the three dots to the top right of the Take a Break screen and you can pick the voice you want to use for the narration. You can also turn break reminders on or off; Opera Air can nudge you to take some time away from the web at regular intervals of between 45 and 180 minutes. What's more, if you have a webcam, there's the option to use it for some of the exercises to make sure you're stretching correctly. Opera doesn't make any specific reference to a privacy policy when it comes to this feature, but we can't see any indication that any kind of permanent recordings are made, and generally speaking, Opera is a privacy-focused browser.
