Social network for post pandemic psychological needs

Keru

PROBLEM

Good morning.

I will not introduce myself, but I will get straight to the point; I have always been very analytical about social aspects and human behavior in general, I noticed in these two years of pandemic aspects that had not attracted my attention in previous years. My idea was born mainly as a result of the situations that occurred in these two years but could easily apply in a "normal" context.

My analysis is based on two very different aspects, the first is the real lack of a social network that goes into "depth", let me explain, the various social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok and also the dating platforms such as Tinder, Badoo, Lovoo create an 'environment where people can share their experiences "superficial", but without a real contact with the next that can bring something concrete to both.

My second analysis comes from the pandemic/post-pandemic situation in which we find ourselves, where the real need for psychological support for the entire population, especially for young people, has increased exponentially. Despite the tendency to hide the discomforts, the damage that the pandemic has created on a psychological and social level is enormous, and since most of the population can not afford a course of therapy with a professional, my idea in this regard is not to give the opportunity to anyone to use a therapy service since it would be impossible, but to give the opportunity to people to be able to communicate their discomforts and their state of mind to others who are in the same situation (anonymously or not). Although it is thought that in families and in circles of friends people talk about very intimate personal problems, in reality it is absolutely not the case because there is a tendency to maintain the family hierarchy and social appearances, so it is difficult to find a place to vent that at the moment is a need that no one meets, except the various professionals, paid to do their job. A further difficulty comes when we find a family member or friend willing to listen to us, no matter how close this person is to us they will not be able to understand our state of mind and how we feel, and this will make us feel almost vain our communication.

My idea is to create a social application that can allow people to meet virtually with others who suffer from exactly the same problems.

As a social I would like it to have certain characteristics of Tinder, the ability to create profiles (anonymous or not) with tags that do not identify the interests but the problems that the person has, and with a description at the discretion of the user that can entice other people to make a positive swipe or not, the search for users I would like to be bound to the tag and not general, for example "user1" has the tag = alcoholism, this person will not match with another who has tag = anxiety but will be confronted with individuals who have the same problems. Initially my idea was born with the presence of a video interview between users, but this would hold back many people for fear of exposing themselves; comparing myself with others have suggested that it would be better an interaction only at the level of messaging, also for the costs.

A social network like this is what we need at the moment, especially considering that we are in a society that lives in a fake sociality and loneliness due to lack of understanding, each of us lives in a state that can not be understood by those close to us but can be understood by those in the same situation.

The adoptions of social can be applied to thousands of possible contexts, of course there are already forums and platforms for confrontation on different topics, but these do not give the possibility to have a private 1vs1 confrontation that is much more intimate and much more effective.

Think for example of two women victims of domestic abuse who can meet on this platform and support each other and tell their experiences, it is not the same thing as going to a forum and get dozens of responses from different people who, however, remain very distant because the context does not give the opportunity to confront each other in a more intimate way.

The need for context is a necessity that should not be underestimated in the human psyche, to understand my point of view I make a very practical example: Titius, Caius and Sempronius are three friends who have an upcoming exam to give and so they go to the library to study, and here they study with great intensity and concentration, despite some small distraction.

 

In another context: Titius, Caius and Sempronius are three friends who have an imminent exam to give and so they find themselves at Titius' house to study, at the beginning all three of them put themselves on the books but after a few minutes they start to get distracted and talk and annoy each other, finally they end up playing Playstation. This brief example is useful to understand the importance of a context, since other social networks have a superficial context and are perceived as such by their users, the creation of a new social network with a specific context will give users the opportunity to categorize it in their minds as a "deep" social network where they can express their problems.

Just the fact of being able to confront with others can alleviate our problems by far, especially if it is someone in the same situation as us.

PS: Sorry if my English is not correct, I come from Italy.