Introducing Favs - Real friends only

The Social Dilemma

With all the technology and social platforms that exist, why are we still so unhappy? The loneliness epidemic is real, people's mental health is worse than ever, and the violence and sadness happening in our schools and communities is showing no signs of slowing down.

Social media is not dead. It's just full of ads. And brands. And creators. And strangers. And influencers. And trolls, and now also bots. But it's definitely not dead. Sadly though, social media has divided us. It’s always a battle of who’s right or wrong, or who’s right or left. If this continues, it’ll just be a battle of who’s left.

Do you remember the days when you hopped on the bus or train and smiled at the people sitting across from you? It was pleasant. Refreshing. Now, everyone is in their own world while they walk physically in this one. Same goes with planes - I remember always talking to the person next to me. Now it's a rare occurrence.

Do you ask people for directions? Or do you just make it happen with the power in your hands. Likely the latter. Pretty sure if you lowered your car window today, the person you’re trying to speak to has headphones plugged in and completely tuned out... or worse.

It started with our cars being equipped with GPS. Then it spread to our pockets, and hands. More recently, they sit on your wrist and even on your finger. When do the notifications stop? Well, they won’t. In fact, you’ll only get more if Snap, Apple and Meta have their way - as once you open your eyes you’ll get told to read this, look at that, or buy that. Sure, there is so much magic and greatness in that. But also some bad, right?

Technology has taken over. It wakes us up, and is sometimes the last thing we stare at before we sleep. We do that so much, the word doom scroll was coined and entered into the Merriam-Webster dictionary in 2020.

The average person spends 2 hours and 31 minutes on social media every day. 10,000 ads per day. That's an ad every five seconds you're awake. Is that a feature or a bug?

As you know, since we don’t pay for these products - we are the product. Advertisers pay money to show us ads in between our friends' updates. Although it feels like it’s algorithmic content more than my friends, but that’s for another blog. To make things worse, first our data was sold. Now our content is sold. Yup, it turns out that the content you make on social media is usable by the platforms themselves however they want. They can use it to train their AI products. By doing so they can create more targeted ads, virtual people, and even written content based on ours. Is anything truly ours these days? What's next? Our thoughts?

But it’s not all bad. Social media has given us some incredible opportunities to connect in ways we couldn’t have imagined just a decade ago. You can stay in touch with friends across the globe, share moments instantly, and discover new communities and interests that you might never have found otherwise. For creatives, entrepreneurs, and people looking for a voice, it’s been a game-changer. For creators and businesses, it’s a platform to sell more. Platforms like these have made learning new skills and sharing passions accessible to anyone.

Yet, even with all these advantages, we’re still seeing a rise in loneliness. Maybe it’s because we’re connecting more widely, but less deeply. We’re spread thin across hundreds of online interactions, but how many of those actually feel meaningful? That’s where things start to fall apart. I think we all agree social media should be meaningful, not mindless.

The Solution

This is why we’re building Favs. The world's first social graph of close friends, that no one else can see. On Favs, your friends are your friends - whereas on most social media, your friends are the platforms business.

Yup, no company will ever see your list, we don’t show mutual connections, and you can add as many or little friends you want without being told you aren’t or don’t have enough. With my recent experiment, Instagram didn’t like me adding only 47 of my closest friends. It kept sending me suggestions to add more people in my feed, as push notifications, and showed me algorithmic videos that I never signed up to.

The average user follows about 750 people on Instagram, and has about 450 contacts on their phone. Surely, they aren’t close friends. Of course not. Like your Facebook, it’s every relative, friend or acquaintance you’ve known since you were a teenager. So, perhaps relevant, but most likely not.

Then there’s the theme of AI friends. Whether it’s the infamous Friend.com device that hangs from your neck, or the up and coming SocialAI.co where you can pick which type of AI-friends you want, Favs is sprinting in the opposite direction and saying connect deeper with real people.

Most social media apps are about learning a little about a lot of people. Favs is a deep social app focused on learning a lot about a few people. It helps you stay close to people who show up, check in, inspire you, lift you up, bring you calm, go the distance, grow with you, remember and follow up. It’s for the people you can have deep conversations with. To us, it’s not just who you know, and how many people - but how well you know them.

Our goal is to make a social media platform so good, so fun, and much better for your mental health, that schools won’t just allow their students to use it, but encourage them to. That’s the ultimate goal - a product designed from the ground up with good intentions.

Being A Good Friend

Over the last year I’ve been asking what "Being a good friend" means to people I meet. Over and over, two things floated to the top. Doing the small things, and showing up.

Doing the small things – A message, a reply, or sending a meme. Just any form of checking up on them, or communication to remind you they’re in your life. These are either often (daily DM's), if not consistent (check-in once a year). To us, wishing someone “happy birthday” isn’t the end of a conversation. It’s the start of one. “No matter how long it’s been, we can pick things up like no time has passed,” said one person.

Show up – Being there when needed. Whether you’re going through something and need support, or have something to celebrate, being a good friend is about genuinely caring, making effort, and being there for the good times and bad.

“Good friends show up. They’re always in your corner”, said another person. Sounds like the best therapy is just a friend who listens.

To say we’re building an app is an enormous understatement. What we’re doing with Favs is fundamentally changing the way people communicate. Altering people’s mindset of what’s possible. And ultimately, changing human behavior.

As Chris Dixon says, “Social networks are probably the most important networks on the internet today”, and that is also why we’re spending so much time thinking about how people interact online, and in person. In today’s world, I genuinely believe no one should feel alone. What matters more than human life?