4 min readWe’re the first generation that grew up entirely inside the algorithm. By the time we left university, we’d been optimised for screen time since primary school. So when uni ended and the forced repetition of halls, lectures, the same canteen and the same group of people disappeared, we did what we’d been trained to do. We replaced it with the phone.
We tell ourselves we’re still connected. We watch each other’s stories. We react to each other’s posts. We send each other reels. We video call sometimes. And the dopamine looks close enough to friendship that we don’t notice the substitution. Until one Tuesday night, you’re scrolling through old photos and you realise you haven’t actually seen most of your friends in months.
Digital connection is a facade. It works while the screen is on. The moment it goes dark, it’s just you in your flat, on a Tuesday night, with the awareness that something has gone quietly missing. Loneliness arrives faster than you expect.
The system that did this to us wasn’t an accident. We’re being held inside an attention economy that profits from our isolation, on platforms that get worse the longer you use them, while the physical infrastructure that previous generations relied on for friendship (the pub regulars, the third spaces, the cheap rent that kept friends in the same city) has eroded underneath us.
But this isn’t the end of the story. Loneliness as a generational condition is structural, not personal. The systems around us were built to prevent connection, but systems can be replaced. We’re not the first generation to need new infrastructure. We’re just the first that has to build it ourselves.
People will tell you the solutions already exist. They don’t. Here’s why each one fails.
Coworkers don’t work because professionalism poisons the well. The more your career matters, the less you can afford to be vulnerable with the people who could fire you. And hybrid and remote work has killed the casual collisions in corridors and kitchens that used to turn colleagues into friends. You see them in scheduled meetings, which is the worst possible context for becoming close with anyone.
Social media used to be social. It isn’t anymore. It’s media. The platforms that once connected you to local groups, niche communities, and people in your neighbourhood pivoted years ago to algorithmic feeds optimised for screen time. Instagram doesn’t show you locals; it shows you whatever keeps you scrolling. TikTok doesn’t connect you to your area; it serves you a global content stream. Connection was the casualty of the engagement economy.
IRL meetup apps (Meetup, Luma, Outr) are better but still broken. They optimise for breadth, not depth. Anyone can attend any event, which sounds open but produces predictable failure modes: a random assortment of people whose only commonality is being free on Wednesday. And even when you do meet someone you’d vibe with, there’s no infrastructure for follow-up. You exchange socials, you maybe like each other’s stories, and you never see them again because nobody takes the initiative.
IRL events present the same problem at a lower resolution. Random crowds, mismatched ages and interests, and the same broken follow-up loop. Even when the night goes well, the friendship dies in the gap between Saturday and the next time someone has to text first.
Dating apps have become the default infrastructure for adult social life, even for people who aren’t really there to date. Hinge, Bumble, and Tinder are where everyone goes when they’re lonely, because they’re the only place left where meeting someone new is socially acceptable. You can’t download an app called “I have no friends.” You can download one called “I’m looking for love.” Same underlying need, more palatable framing. The result is millions of people using dating apps to solve a friendship problem and getting exhausted because the platform isn’t built for it.
Our beta testers said it directly: “this is really cool, I don’t want a relationship, I just want to meet friends, and there isn’t a way to do that.” That’s the quiet truth underneath dating app fatigue. People aren’t burned out on dating. They’re burned out on using dating as a substitute for the connection they actually need.
And anyone in a relationship is locked out of the entire ecosystem. The infrastructure for meeting new people is gated behind being single, which means partnered people who are lonely and looking for friends have literally nowhere to go.
The pattern across all of these is the same. Real friendship needs three things: compatible people, repeated exposure, and low-pressure context. Workplaces give you repetition but no low pressure. Meetups give you low pressure but no compatibility. Dating apps give you neither, plus a romantic frame that ruins the platonic version. Social media gives you nothing physical at all. Nothing currently puts all three together for adults who’ve left university.
And here’s the deepest problem. None of these platforms profit from you actually succeeding. Hinge doesn’t make money when you find your person and delete the app. Bumble doesn’t make money when you build a friendship that thrives offline. Meetup doesn’t make money when you stop needing it. Every existing platform’s business model is at war with your goal. The longer you stay on the app, the better for them. The longer you stay on the app, the worse for you. Dating app fatigue isn’t an accident. It’s the product working as designed.
Which means the thing that needs to exist has to be built differently. By people who actually feel the problem. With a business model that only works when users genuinely succeed. From a starting point of “get people off the app and into each other’s lives” rather than “keep people in the app forever.” That product doesn’t exist yet. So I’m building it.