Australians are Lonely, Can Swiping Culture Help?

By: Laura Bennett

Australia is facing what many describe as a loneliness epidemic, with a third of us reportedly feeling lonely and one in four of us experiencing chronic, severe loneliness.

Psychologist Rachel Harker, founder of dating app Tribal and its friendship offshoot Connect by Tribal, wanted to do something that addresses the widespread social disconnection.

“Loneliness does not just affect singles, it affects everyone,” Rachel said.

“Parents, professionals, retirees – all of us are vulnerable to feeling disconnected.”

We know technology is one of the biggest drivers of loneliness, but so too is our reduced ability to be linked in to in-person communities.

“Everyone is behind a screen for a large portion of the day,” Rachel said.

“And [the way] modern society runs is very individualistic.

“We don’t have that community vibe like we used to.”

Rather than rejecting technology altogether, Rachel’s approach is to reshape it.

“I took a step back and said, ‘how can we embrace technology because it’s where the world is going’, but use it in a much more positive way?” Rachel said.

That vision led to Connect by Tribal, a values-based friendship app that “matches” friends based on those values to encourage deeper and more lasting connections.

“We can have really different personalities, but if we’ve got that core aligned value, that’s the key,” Rachel said.

The app’s designed to help those friendships to translate into face-to-face spaces through its “community circles”.

“The [community circles] is a group chat feature where you can connect with users based on aligned interest or groups,” Rachel said.

“If you’re new to town, new parent, a pet lover, a foodie, you can connect and chat about that interest topic in particular.

“So it goes beyond just one-on-one conversations.”

Rachel hope for Australian’s feeling isolated is that her platform will provide safe, meaningful ways for people to find friendship and belonging.

“Swiping on a photo for a friend just didn’t sit well with me,” Rachel said.

“It doesn’t matter what our friends look like. True friendship is about personality and aligned interests.”