How Social Engines Can Solve the Loneliness Epidemic
Nick Goldstein
|Founder of PLATO5
|August 3rd, 2024
Social Media has fundamentally changed how we socialize on a day-to-day basis. Some may find this change to be wholly positive, but with soaring levels of loneliness in the USA, it’s worth considering whether or not this powerful technology is responsible for some of this social isolation. This issue likely isn’t going away on its own and innovative ideas will likely be the solution. PLATO5 is our attempt at providing a tool for people to conveniently connect with others with similar personality traits and interests, giving users a utility that can expand their social circle with limited obstacles.
We view PLATO5 as a tool in its simplest form, not necessarily a platform or a vehicle for content creation. For this reason, I make a distinction between traditional Social Media and PLATO5. A Social Engine is a much more apt way of describing the type of company we’re trying to build and the service that we’re trying to provide to users. Facebook and other Social Media sites take measures to keep people scrolling on their site and make money off of how many eyeballs they can attract, gluing people to screens until they finally tire of doom-scrolling. PLATO5 will likely use advertising in the future to make a profit as well, however, our fundamental goal is to have users close their laptops, shut off their phones, and meet IRL.
In an advisory from the United States Department of Health and Human Services entitled, Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy 19th and 21st Surgeon General of the United States describes the loneliness issue in detail, “In recent years, about one-in-two adults in America reported experiencing loneliness. And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic cut off so many of us from friends, loved ones, and support systems, exacerbating loneliness and isolation” He continued laying out the health consequences of this social isolation, “Loneliness is far more than just a bad feeling—it harms both individual and societal health. It is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death. The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, and even greater than that associated with obesity and physical inactivity.” This is why a tool for connecting people in a reliable manner is so important. Clearly our society is lacking the social adhesive that it once had. We can speculate on why that is and blame Social Media sites that seek consumer’s constant attention or more and more services that neglect the traditional social components that made people talk to each other, but regardless of your interpretation of the issue, this problem can be mitigated by using the power of Social Media in a different way. PLATO5 seeks to be the solution to this issue and at the very least offer a way forward.
Social Engines, like PLATO5, don't seek to get 100% of their user's attention for a quick buck from advertisers. We're a utility and we want to create a positive feedback loop built on the high-quality matches that we supply our users with using PIMS (Personality Interest Match System). We want users to meet friends in their area and fundamentally improve their lives and health and then come back to the app because they had such a great result and the content on the app is engaging.