“The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.”

When I moved to the edges of NOVA in September 2022, I was shocked by the lack of social groups and gatherings in my area, even with a substantial population. Later, I discovered publications on what is now being called a "Loneliness Epidemic" that is affecting the nation. 

The following are sources showing the extent of this looming crisis:

• Hours per day spent alone - Washington Post / American Time Use Survey
• General loneliness metrics - Edward Conard
• Social media not fulfilling social needs - National Library of Medicine
• 2024 Rising loneliness and causes - Harvard 

I then came to the conclusion that I was not alone in feeling like others did not socialize as regularly as even just a few years prior, with countless people expressing the same problems to me. Though I cannot tackle the entirety of loneliness, I suspect that a chunk could be fought with an app-based approach that fights many causes listed on Harvard's page that may replace hours on anti-social social media, and engage people in meaningful, in person interactions.

Pillars of our app based solution will include:

• Forming and finding common interest groups for individuals
• Increasing the ease of finding casual non-formal happenings around the area
• Catalyzing interactions of new group members with existing ones through innovative procedural approaches