Invest in Human Interaction: Gen Z Needs It
When news, fashion trends, and even body image are influenced by the messages on our smartphones, it is difficult to disconnect. With teenagers spending an average of nine hours a day online, it is clear that Generation Z is hooked. Understandably, businesses have flocked to the phones. Companies have been capitalizing on this phenomenon, but how long can this market last when the anti-social culture of smartphones is completely unnatural to us?
While smartphones are effective at holding our attention, I find my generation’s outrageous amount of time spent on them disturbingly boring. Gen Z has not grown up addicted to entertainment, but mind-numbing, all-consuming stimulation that tends to make the rest of the world a little less exciting. Most of the Gen Zer’s I know are hungry for real life interactions. There is a way to mesh the advantages of technology with healthy products, ideas, and businesses. Venture capitalists, startups, entrepreneurs, and others alike should pivot their strategy of investing in this admittedly lucrative “zombie-culture” to investing in what the iPhone has distanced us from — human interaction, healthy lifestyles, and thought-provoking stimuli. Companies such as Neighborhood Goods, Peloton, and Quilt are doing just that.
Neighborhood Goods reinvented the department store by creating a social space where visitors can eat, listen to music and live speakers, and attend events while shopping in an ever-changing collection of brands. Neighborhood Goods has a trendy and exciting environment that engages customers in a way that Amazon and other online shopping sources cannot. Ground Up Ventures’ investment in Neighborhood Goods helps bring the creativity, music, and style of Instagram to life.
Peloton, an exercise equipment company, has meshed fitness and streaming. Dubbed, “the Netflix of exercise”, Peloton’s products have a sleek touch screen that enables the user to take a fitness class from the comfort of their home. The screen enhances the rider’s exercise experience by connecting them to a community of riders, playing music, and displaying a live fitness instructor. Peloton attracts Gen Z’s and Millennials as costumers with a tech-savvy product without abusing technology.
Quilt is a membership platform where women can join facilitated conversations in others’ homes. This startup is giving people a chance to create a community in their own homes meant for meaningful conversations with friends and/or strangers. Active on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, Quilt benefits and connects through social media but supplies a product opposite to what these platforms are missing: human to human interaction.
Invest in companies like Neighborhood Goods, Peloton, and Quilt — companies who do not abuse addictive screens, scrolling, and social media, but who understand technology and social media’s place in our lives. With evidence that depression is linked to phone usage, environments, products, and services where people can connect on a real level and truly experience life, will become highly sought after.
