https://www.city-journal.org/decline-of-family-loneliness-epidemic
There was quite a spirited discussion about this recently:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20116699<p>The discussion highlighted these problems:
1) neighbors feel awkward introducing themselves
2) people are lonely<p>I am going through Startup school tackling the above problems. Approach:
1) at a minimum, users create a small paragraph every 2 weeks. This creates a sense of familiarity with the writer, thus removing the awkwardness of introducing oneself or continuing previous conversations.
2) people bond over some characteristics - interests, geographical location of origin (from Kentucky, India etc) and family status (young family, single....)
3) the focus is on face to face relationship, so need to be geographically near.<p>To this end, platform capabilities:
1) Allow a push notification every week or two weeks of the created paragraph to friends of users.
2) Search criteria by hobbies, geographical location of origin, family status and nearness.
3) Recommend neutral activities such as poker, a beer, or show and tell (stamp collection, new car ...) to neighbors
who are "following" each other.<p>How does this sound?<p>Any suggestions?<p>Here is the MVP developed so far as part of the Starup school.
https://its-near.me