Lonely? Put some ‘Thoughtful’ Into It

We’ve written here about a lot of social discovery apps that help you find new friends to help tackle loneliness. But there is another branch of apps emerging that tackle loneliness in a different way. They help people be better friends and maintain their relationships. Thoughtful is the latest app to launch that operates in a similar vein.

Thoughtful is a newly launched app, currently available on the App store. It’s not a place to meet new people, but a place to enrich your existing friendships. The first thing the app does is set you a personality quiz. You’re given a number of statements related to friendship situations and asked to rate how much you agree. From there, you will be designated one of five friendship personalities, which include, organiser, seeker and cultivator among others. 

Depending on your personality type, the app then tailors your experience and prompts you receive everyday. See, the idea behind Thoughtful is to log in once a day and commit to making friendship a regular habit. The idea is that friendship best grows when it’s tended to in small amounts regularly, rather than grand gestures out of the blue. Reliable, consistent interactions are what cultivate connections that are strong.

As such, when you log into the app you are given three prompts. One prompt to reach out to a friend, one to remind you of an important date in a friend’s life you have previously logged, and one opportunity to reflect. By reflect, we mean it asks you to make an entry to a question like: ‘who was the last friend to compliment you?’

You only get as much as you put in, so you do need to each day log friends, log important dates, and make entries – but what you can potentially build is a place that helps you celebrate, and find greater meaning in your friendships. The app customises its responses and suggests outreaches you could send to friends based on your personality. And on top of that, has expert advice for reminders that deal with serious situations, like loss and grief. 

Elizabeth Shaffer CEO and Co-Founder says the app is all about “reducing the friction of reaching out to friends in any way possible.” It’s a hugely interesting approach to the loneliness epidemic. And has potential to be an app people can use long-term.