O'friends Social App

Before the pandemic, I was already curious about how people sustain connection in a digital world. But during the lockdowns, that question took on a new weight. Loneliness was no longer a private feeling — it became a public health concern.One day on the New York City subway, I saw an official mental health campaign listing free hotlines for those struggling with isolation. It was striking to see such messages in main subway routes — a sign that the problem had become urgent. Back home, I started reading public health studies and realized how widespread social isolation had become. Professional counseling can help, but its reach is limited. I began wondering whether design and technology could offer a more universal, everyday form of support.That thought led to O’friends — a small, technology-driven way to rebuild connection. It draws on principles from mental health training but applies them through familiar interactions. The goal is to help people find warmth again, naturally, in the flow of daily life.

Before moving to New York, I had never really felt what a time zone meant. Living there changed that. Suddenly, I became the one who was always either too early or too late — waking up to messages from yesterday, replying when others were asleep. That constant delay made me realize how time itself can quietly reshape relationships.When I later interviewed people across different countries, I discovered that this feeling was universal. Many lived with constant time differences — working, studying, or keeping in touch across continents — and the effort of calculating “Is it a good time?” had become part of daily life.That insight inspired the time-zone-based friend panel, comso in O’friends. It visualizes both where friends are, and when they are — showing overlapping online moments, moods, and recent activity. By turning abstract time into something visible and empathetic, the design helps people feel closer, even when they’re worlds apart.

When we first prototyped the prompts in O’friends, we noticed that many people hesitated on the subtle, hard-to-define boundaries between wanting to reach out and fearing to intrude — moments where connection could happen but often didn’t. The prompts were designed to ease that hesitation, offering a simple, emotionally comfortable way for people to express presence without directing it at anyone. They were never meant to be messages, but small public cues that say, “I’m here,” allowing others to re-engage naturally.To develop them, I studied how people express moods and intentions in short digital formats — from Instagram Stories to X trends. We tested short phrases across cultures, focusing on tone rather than language. In East Asia, users preferred reflective or indirect prompts like “Something I rediscovered today”, while in the U.S., direct and casual tones such as “What I’m listening to lately” felt more authentic. Indian participants leaned toward shared humor or references to group experiences.Through several iterations, we learned that prompts resonate best when they reflect shared human rhythms rather than cultural stereotypes — music, time, memory, weather, daily emotions. By abstracting these universals and allowing tone adjustments, O’friends created a vocabulary that travels easily across contexts. It doesn’t tell people what to say; it gives them an emotional starting point that feels local, familiar, and true to their world.