Despite living in a hyper-connected world, rates of loneliness and depression are higher than ever. We know a great deal about how to design our physical spaces to encourage community connections – libraries, town parks, and adult education centers – but we are just scratching the surface in figuring out how to strengthen social connections and build civic engagement in our online spaces. Can we translate these real world designs into our online platforms to bolster our communities and our democracy?
Digital pioneers are demonstrating the value that online spaces can provide in fostering community and social cohesion. Some of these groups are not new, like Black Twitter, but are finding ways to survive, and even thrive, within larger toxic social media platforms. Others, like gift sharing communities, are working out exit strategies from traditional social media sites because they have found these structures are overly focused on profit over public interest. Still other pioneers are growing their own platforms to ensure a design that emphasizes local community values.
