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Hugo Amsellem

Host, TEDx Paris Universit

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Building an app to deepen relationships we have with people.

Sherry Turkle's talk really moved us, and two friends and I decided to do something about it:

Technology and social innovation has been focused on increasing the quantity of interactions and the quantity of the people you interact with.

We need to spend less time reading and liking statuses online and more time with our people in real life.

Why? Because for relationships to blossom we need to have real life interactions. So we decided to build something to make them better and simpler.

We are starting to build a mobile app whose sole purpose is to have a real life interaction with people you already know and that you want to see!

This is not a spammy thread to promote the app, because the app doesn't exist yet. We just want to meet and share with people that share the vision and wanting to be a part of it! Ping us on http://bit.ly/TEDpeople

Is a mobile app that facilitate face-to-face interactions (so we can increase the quality of relationships we have with people) something you'd love to see?

Related Talks:
Topics: happiness innovation relationships society technology
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    Sarah M

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    Oct 30 2012: Hi Hugo
    I fully support the less Computer/Phone social media time and more real people time.
    Isn't having an App for this a contradiction?
    If there was an App for it shouldn’t it say “ get off your phone and talk to a person in person”?
    What I have noticed recently about people’s interaction who rely on their phones is people sitting across from each other in restaurants both on their phones to other people or social media websites.
    If you look around a room of people you will see people everywhere checking facebook, Twitter etc. It seems to be a social crutch for some people. If you are nervous or uncomfortable in a social setting what do you do? Go to your phone.
    It seems to be more of a problem for the Youth. Common curtsey is gone and they will talk to you while on their phone as well. In a world where multi tasking is praised maybe we should go back to the basics when communicating with each other and focus on one thing at a time.
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      Hugo Amsellem

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      Nov 9 2012: Thanks a lot for your insights Sarah! We totally agree! When we feel alone we go to our phones and we refresh our facebook/twitter/social feeds. This is wrong because this is a bottomless pit. We want to create a digital place -an app- that you will go to when you feel alone, but the only purpose of this app will be to see friends in real. Think of it as if on facebook you'd have your 'online friends available to chat' plus your 'friends available to hang out'. Would that make you see (different) people more often, and more easily?
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        Sarah M

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        Nov 9 2012: Hi Hugo
        Thanks for responding.
        Still not really getting the concept but any App capable of bringing people together has to be positive :-)

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