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THE PROSOCIAL STORY
ProSocial was born from a fundamental realization: One of the most depleted resources in American society is community.
BEGINNINGS
An Article Sparks a Realization
In the fall of 2022, Alexander Lang read an article excerpt from Harvard sociologist, Robert Putnam, on his new book The Upswing. The basic premise is that American society swings like a pendulum back and forth between being highly communalistic and highly individualistic.
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The last peak of American communalism was in the 1960s and ever since the pendulum has been swinging back towards individualism. However, this particular cycle of individualism became super-charged in the early 2000s with the advent of the internet, smartphones and social media.
These factors have conspired to create an epidemic of loneliness and disconnection never before seen in human history. Nearly half of all Americans report having less than three close friends and, without intervention, each subsequent generation will only become more isolated.
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Alex set out to create that intervention.
PROSOCIAL IS BORN
Two Key Insights
As Alex researched the current applications that allow for the formation of friendships, he noticed a major deficit. They are often dependent upon two people browsing each other's profile and then initiating communication online. Eventually, if the conversation goes well, the two people may eventually meet in-person.
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What if the trial and error could be removed from the process? What if, instead of searching endlessly through profiles, you could only meet the people with whom you will have chemistry and connection? This became the focus of ProSocial's matching algorithm.
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Alex's second key insight would be how the formation of online friendships are unnatural. For almost all of human history, friendships were forged in-person. What if, instead of getting to know people online, the whole point of ProSocial was to meet these potential friends in the real world?
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It was from these two insights that ProSocial was born.
FROM IDEA TO REALITY
Prototype Creation and Algorithm Testing
Alex lobbied investors and received seed funding in early 2023. Through his Oxford connections, Alex found experts in social psychology who helped design a unique combination of personality psychology, behavioral psychology and demographic statistics as the backbone of the matching algorithm.
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Simultaneously, a team of programmers, led by UX Designer Lyric Peate, began coding a prototype of the application so that the matching algorithm could be tested and refined.
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Currently, ProSocial is training the matching algorithm by partnering with large groups of individuals (100 or more at a time). These groups include businesses, community organizations and religious institutions.
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The current goal is to have the algorithm refined by the end of 2024 so that the full application can be built and deployed to the public by 2025.
Our Journey: Past, Present & Future
