Dadu Shin for Insider
Now the industry needs to help bring us back together
Technology is making staying home more convenient, more enjoyable, and more compelling than ever. Why go to the trouble of heading to the mall when you can get almost anything shipped to your house overnight? Why go out to eat when you can get anything delivered with the push of a button? Why go to the movie theater when you can access almost the entire history of film from the comfort of your own couch — and make your own popcorn to boot?
As the CEO of Lyft, I'm fully aware of how easy these tech tools make it to close ourselves off from the world. But the decision to stay sedentary comes at a cost. Human beings have a deep need to connect with one another — everyday encounters with a neighbor, barista, or fellow commuter can help people feel happier and connect them to their community. When we forgo these casual interactions, we suffer consequences. In fact, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has declared the level of self-reported loneliness a major health crisis and compared the effects of social isolation to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.
"Social connection is a fundamental human need, as essential to survival as food, water, and shelter," the report from the Surgeon General's office said. "Despite current advancements that now allow us to live without engaging with others (e.g., food delivery, automation, remote entertainment), our biological need to connect remains."
This lack of social connection isn't just bad for us personally; it's bad for society — contributing to increases in crime, decreases in economic mobility, reduced productivity, and further polarization.
While it's clear that technology has exacerbated the state of isolation, it doesn't carry all the blame. After all, Robert Putnam's landmark study, Bowling Alone, found that in-person social interactions began declining in the 1950s. Still, technology has clearly deepened this trend, and the businesses that have developed the online tools we use bear some responsibility. So if the tech industry is going to play a role in fixing the loneliness crisis, we need to look at what went wrong and how we can do better.
Feeding people's desires vs. supporting social good
After three decades online, we're only now starting to understand the internet's effects on our brains, psyches, and societies — and some of the news is ugly. The surgeon general's report argued that in many scenarios, technology "displaces in-person engagement, monopolizes our attention, reduces the quality of our interactions, and even diminishes our self-esteem."
To address technology's problems, we must first acknowledge that these social consequences were unintended — born of misplaced priorities, rather than malevolence. Many technology companies have grown successful because they are so adept at finding "product-market fit," meaning they can determine exactly what customers want and find the most efficient way to deliver it to them. A company that prioritizes product-market fit can build a great, customer-focused business.
That relentless focus on feeding customer desires can also have a downside when those desires are out of step with broader social needs or even their long-term mental health.
When I led Amazon's retail group, we focused on what then-CEO Jeff Bezos would call "durable customer needs" — price, selection, and convenience — and worked every day to find ways to satisfy them. That led to a relentless culture of innovation and breakthroughs such as one-click ordering and next-day delivery. And those innovations were so popular, they sparked widespread behavioral changes.
But that relentless focus on feeding customer desires can also have a downside when those desires are out of step with broader social needs or even their long-term mental health. For instance, the second I finish a Netflix episode, the app feeds my hunger to watch the next one by delivering it to me instantly. But if I keep indulging that impulse, I'll find I've spent an entire evening alone on the couch. Or take the innovation at Amazon: We made it so easy to get an extension cord delivered that folks forgot what a joy a trip to a hardware store can be.
The venture capitalist Marc Andreessen has said that for startups, product-market fit is "the only thing that matters." He describes it in almost mystical terms, an achievement that generates a tsunami of business, where the biggest challenge is keeping up with demand. Startups "can ignore almost everything else" until they accomplish it, he says. I appreciate Marc's wisdom: Great product-market fit produces a sugar high. But there's something missing. If technology companies really want to improve people's lives, we need to be just as rigorous at ensuring that our products serve social goals, not just customers' immediate needs. Product-market fit won't accomplish that. But maybe product-purpose fit can.
Finding a purpose
Companies are in the business of making money, and some companies are built to pursue that goal single-mindedly. But the most important companies — the ones that endure — pursue a broader purpose as well. Many technology companies aspire to fall into this camp and present themselves as changing the world in a fundamental way by enabling creativity, or reducing carbon emissions, or even helping humans populate other planets. But few truly achieve the goal.
At Lyft, we think of ourselves as a bridge between our riders' and drivers' digital and physical lives, bringing people together and, in the process, strengthening our social infrastructure. Riders start on our app, but they end up together with their friends, working with their coworkers, or shopping at a local store. So when we develop products, we measure success against this goal: Are we creating a great ride-hailing experience that makes it easy for people to get out and about? And that goal is well aligned with the broader social goal of making people less lonely. It's not even something we need to consciously think about; it's the natural implication of our work. That's what I mean by product-purpose fit. And it's one reason we haven't pursued home food delivery: It makes it easier for people to stay inside — which works in direct opposition to our purpose.
Tech is a tool that can be used for good, as long as the companies building these tools put the right safeguards in place.
Product-purpose fit sounds simple, but it is difficult to pull off over the long term. Facebook's mission is to increase interpersonal connection, and it originally measured success by the time people spent on the service and the number of connections they made there. Over time, it became apparent that this was not a great social fit. When the company optimized for those metrics, it encouraged antisocial behavior — polarization, misinformation, and so forth.
Apple found itself in a similar position. Its mission is to create excellent products and user experiences — and judging by its sales, it has absolutely succeeded. But over time, it became apparent that one product — the iPhone — was so compelling that some users found themselves addicted to it. After some investors urged it to take action, Apple responded: "We think deeply about how our products are used and the impact they have on users and the people around them." It announced more-robust parental controls and, over the years, introduced more features to make it easier for customers to limit their screen time. Of course, it was relatively easy for Apple to do that because, unlike some internet companies, its business model does not depend on squeezing more engagement out of each user. That's a sign of good product-purpose fit.
Tech can help the solution
Just as research has pointed out the downside of modern technology, studies have found it also has the potential to make the world better. Videoconferencing and telemedicine can benefit older people and connect them to the world. Social networks, when used carefully and appropriately, can have a positive impact on social well-being and mental health. The surgeon general's report even acknowledged the potential for technology to open up our lives, writing: "Several examples of benefits include technology that can foster connection by providing opportunities to stay in touch with friends and family, offering other routes for social participation for those with disabilities, and creating opportunities to find community, especially for those from marginalized groups."
Tech is a tool that can be used for good, as long as the companies building these tools put the right safeguards in place. There are companies out there whose products have a clear ability to combat the antisocial epidemic. Eventbrite succeeds only when someone makes a commitment to attend an event in their town. Or perhaps we can take inspiration from companies from an earlier era that tried to bridge the digital-physical divide, such as Meetup and Foursquare. Doubling down on these pro-social features could change people's behaviors just as much as one-click ordering did for Amazon — making it easier and more fun for all of us to spend time together and be less alone.
I don't want to sound idealistic or naive. Running a company isn't easy, and adding a goal — particularly one that's hard to measure — requires discipline and continued leadership. But I'd argue this is a responsibility the tech industry has taken on, whether we want it or not.
We have contributed to this problem, and I believe we have the right combination of talent, reach, and tools to help solve it. We have seen, over the past several years, how small individual decisions can add up to massive social consequences. Let's commit ourselves to — and build our businesses around — helping people make the right decisions, not just to meet their immediate needs, not just to bolster our bottom lines, but also to meet this social crisis.
David Risher has served as the CEO of Lyft since April 2023 and as a member of the board of directors since July 2021.