
Ask HN: Should online communities incentivize human interaction - charris0
I&#x27;m interested in how we can design online communities to better reinforce and facilitate the human experience which digital connectedness often makes us miss out on.
An obvious answer is to encourage more real world, face to face interaction. But there&#x27;s many questions still on how best to do this.<p>I wonder specifically, what are the aspects of physical meetups that we enjoy and that keep us coming back.<p>How can we use technology to remove some of the work in facilitating these, and make us less lonely.<p>I reckon the HN community will have some interesting personal opinions and experiences on in-person and digital communities. Please chime in with your thoughts!
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lm28469
Anecdata: the less time I spend on my phone/computer the more social I get.
Everything interesting in my life so far happened organically when I went out
of my comfort zone or when I wasn't expecting it.

> How can we use technology to remove some of the work in facilitating these
> ... and make us less lonely.

I don't think we need more tech to solve this issue, just go out, talk to
people. Online communities help shut-ins to stay shut-ins, not to open up. It
gives you a sense of being part of a community but it's not anywhere close to
the real deal. Anything more complete/complex than meetup.com is already too
much.

Use the web to find a local DnD / movie / wood working / whatever club, then
switch off your computer and go there.

