The need in this area is obvious. Young people are lonely. The elderly are lonely. Middle-aged people are - surprise - lonely. U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has described loneliness as an epidemic, one that can be as bad for one's health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
In response to what they perceive as a vacuum of community, several local services have emerged to bridge the gaps between solitary souls. Although most of the solutions I encountered were resolutely low-tech, they applied a distinctly technical approach to the problem of friendship.
The founders and organizers have backgrounds as software engineers, user researchers and entrepreneurs. They spoke of refining their services through iterative testing or of cutting out the logistical hurdles to seeing friends - in short, applying the spirit of startup problem-solving to the fuzzy realm of friendship.
That's because we were put in touch by an algorithm that paired us according to our self-reported values - how strongly we agreed with statements like 'Religion is important to me' and 'I have experimented with a variety of drugs.'
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