On loneliness
The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness | Hacker News
news.ycombinator.com
Hi IH,
Many people feel lonely today (see this HN post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20116699 about loneliness with > 1K comments). Moving to a new city and finding friends there is quite hard (this was the case for me my first year in nyc).
I tried using BumbleBFF and t
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Hey Fernando, I 100% resonate with this problem! This article on IH (if you haven't seen it) was super interesting because it explained why after 9 months of working remotely, i've started to develop a social anxiety...
https://www.indiehackers.com/article/how-remote-work-impacts-your-brain-8664999452?utm_source=Indie+Hackers+Newsletter&utm_campaign=indie-hackers-newsletter-20190605&utm_medium=email
BumbleBFF was also not for me & I love the idea of a small group of people to keep it light : )
One idea would be to facilitate first introductions via technology / a call (for example dialup.com does this in an interesting way) and then allow the participants to opt into meeting irl?
Not sure but best of luck & keep us posted!
Wow, what a great post! Thanks a lot for sharing. I found your scientific/biological approach to loneliness quite insightful. What kinds of interactions do you think fit best remote workers? (chat, voice call, video call, coffee meetup, etc.)
you wanna ask @leowid — his article, I was just sharing : )
Oops, thanks a lot for sharing anyways :)!
Hey @leowid . Congratulations on your awesome post!
I'm trying to help remote workers avoid/alleviate loneliness. If I were to create a solution, I would find it weird promoting it by selling "hey, this will solve your loneliness problem!" Potential users might feel uneasy acknowledging they have a problem. What do you think?
I think the problem space is solid. The issue all these apps run into is the lack of commitment from users + stale users. I think stale users can be solved rather quickly with something that checks when users were last active. However, solving for lack of commitment from users is tough.
You need some way to get people to commit to hanging out. Otherwise you'll have rampant flakers, which leads to sub optimal outcomes for the users who do commit, which leads to user churn. That negative feedback loop is really tough to beat.
If there was some incentive system that was attached to this, perhaps that would do the trick?
Thanks for the ideas! I've heard multiple people complain about stale users with BumbleBFF and others. Knowing when people were last active would be quite helpful. I'm curious about what you mean by lack of commitment. Do you mean people don't show up to real life meetings they agreed to, or people just don't agree to meet in person. Have you experienced this lack of commitment yourself or know of someone who has? Which apps have this issue?
Of course :)
I meant more like people committing to meeting and then backing out for a random reason or maybe not even letting the people know that they won't be showing up.
I've experienced this phenomena personally on this tennis league I joined. People will text you randomly right before the agreed upon time to play and give you some reason for backing out. There's just this lack of need to "commit" when you don't have a strong connection with the person in the first place. Said another way -- there's nothing at stake if you don't show up.
Another example might be an app like Meetup. I know from talking to meetup organizers that they often get a bunch of people who will click "attend" on an event and never show up. Depends on meetup, but sometimes the proportion of flakers can be 70%+.
I've been working on ideas for addressing this issue for a while. The closest solution currently out there is Meetup but anyone using it knows that most people join groups but never show up to anything.
In my brainstorming I came up with very similar approaches to yours, like focusing on activities, smaller groups, and an emphasis on getting people to meet in person. The last one is most important for a successful product IMO, and I can think of a few ways to introduce a solution.
Let me know if you're ever interested in talking about this more! I think this is a real problem that needs solving for a lot of people and I would love to try to tackle the issue.
Hey, thanks for your response!
Why do you think 'emphasis on getting people to meet in person is the most important for a successful product'? Why do you think people join groups but never show up?
If you're in NYC, I would be down to grab a coffee with you.
At the end of the day, I think people want real, in-person connections with people that they can ultimately form face-to-face relationships with. IMO if a product is addressing this issue then their success should be determined on whether they are able to help people achieve this goal.
That's a good question. I think a lot of people open a Meetup account and just join a ton of groups without necessarily intending to become involved. I would guess that a lot of Meetup users never go to any meetings, or maybe just a handful. It takes no commitment to join a group but actually going to a meeting is a large commitment, especially when you don't know anyone there. I think there are ways to help people feel more comfortable with this process.
I am not in NYC unfortunately but I am reachable over skype if you're interested.
One thing I've noticed is that meeting people with a shared interest is the easiest way to make friends from scratch. If you join a tennis club, start mountain biking or rock climbing you will quickly meet the regulars. If you go consistently and focus on getting better you will get to know people and be able to help them out.
I think the app might be better off if it is actually focused on what you're meeting to do. Meeting for coffee or lunch doesn't sound fun if you don't know the people. Meeting to play chess in a specific park will give you something to do and talk about. It's easier for people to visualize how the meetup might unfold.
Not sure if that helps at all but good luck with your idea!
I agree with you in that focusing on what you're meeting to do is important.
I also think that attracting only people that are looking to make new friends should be emphasized. Otherwise, it would be discouraging if you went to a hiking meetup only to find people who are already close friends while you are alone.
What do you think of this concern? How could I attract mostly people interested in making friends through a certain activity?