Using Technology to Faciliate Healing Human Connection
7 Cups is a technology company. We use technology to expand access to free, high quality, emotional support. Before 7 Cups, you had to visit a therapist to get support; now, you can open an app or visit our site and connect with a trained and compassionate listener. Technology has enabled us to make getting help convenient and easy.
Some tech companies are interested in using technology to replace humans. For example, Uber wants to create self-driving cars to replace human drivers. Replacing humans unequivocally helps Uber.
7 Cups is not interested in using technology to replace humans. That is the opposite of our mission. We do not want to decrease human connection. We want to significantly increase and facilitate healing human connection. Replacing humans would unequivocally harm 7 Cups.
According to some estimates, people in the developed world (think US, Europe etc.) have 8 times as much mental illness as people in the developing world. Isnt that staggering? I believe one big reason for this is because there is much more human connection in the developing world than there is in the developed world. People are much more isolated in countries with more financial resources. It is a major problem and one that we are working hard to help solve.
The developed world has access to more technology. The answer, however, is not to become a luddite (someone afraid of technology). The answer is instead to leverage technology - much like weve already been doing (!) - to facilitate human connection. In other posts, Ive talked about how we can use technology to better match people with listeners and better train listeners. These improvements increase human connection. They help us better fulfill our mission.
Last week we did some testing with Noni (our bot) leading a group discussion. It was an experiment. We wanted to see how a really basic version of Noni would do. It was nothing more than a queue of questions fired at certain times. Super low tech. It was essentially just a list of questions/thoughts/ideas. Imagine if a person just typed in a question every few minutes and didnt do anything else. That is what Noni did.
We learned some interesting things. People naturally kind of fit in around Noni. They brought nuance to the discussion in a way that Noni never could. They supported one another and, overall, it seemed to be a fairly positive experience. The people in the group and Noni complemented one another. Noni was a member of the team. A pretty limited member, but still a member.
I think this is a good metaphor or way to approach technology on 7 Cups. Tech, or Noni, can be a part of our team. Her role, and role of all our tech, is to facilitate human connection. Tech needs to increase the way that we care for one another. If it doesnt, then it is fundamentally undermining all that we stand for here at 7 Cups. I think about our team of amazing group moderators. They are doing incredibly important work. (Side note: Group therapy/moderating is actually a tech innovation on individual therapy. Individual therapy helps one person; group therapy helps multiple people with similar levels of efficacy at the same time). @Heather and our mods work very hard to scale support. We do not have research yet, but will soon on just how much they help people. I think well all be surprised with the power of group support.
Do we want to replace moderators with Noni? No. Never. Replacing a moderator would be against our mission. It would decrease human connection. If that is the case, then when does it make sense to use Noni? It makes sense to have Noni as a part of the moderating team when we do not have a moderator. This might be late at night. It might be at certain time intervals when all the mods are busy. It might be for a new group room that doesnt yet have a mod team. Noni is there to fill in the gaps as long as we need her. When we are good, we can turn her off or remove her from that temporary role.
We are in a very interesting time right now. Bots are coming and they are taking jobs (bank tellers, taxi drivers, translators...the list goes on and on). This trend will accelerate. Our mission is to increase human connection and healing. Talking with a bot alone cannot do that (check out the film Her for a great portrayal). Bots can support us, but they cannot replace us and they cannot provide direct human connection.
Here is another way of looking at it:
Decreased human connection = increased mental health problems
Increased human connection = decreased mental health problems
7 Cups = increased human connection :)
7 Cups will always, fundamentally, be about human to human connection. That is why we exist.
As always, please share thoughts, question, and feedback below! Thank you!