Connect withWe're building the how.
That's the whole mission. The Connection Cooperative is a nonprofit in formation with a three-stage plan: free reconnection guides, then month-long digital detox cohorts, then — long-term — walk-in Connection Centers in real neighborhoods. None of it is built yet. Join now and you're not early; you're founding.
We're recruiting founding board members, advisors, builders, and partner organizations. People, not money.
A nonprofit in formation, working toward 501(c)(3) status.
“Loneliness is far more than just a bad feeling — it harms both individual and societal health. It is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death.”
Our reading list
Our thinking draws on The Anxious Generation (Jonathan Haidt), Lost Connections (Johann Hari), Digital Minimalism (Cal Newport), Dopamine Nation (Anna Lembke), and Julianne Holt-Lunstad's research on social connection and mortality.
We're more connected than ever. So why do we feel so alone?
Half of American adults reported experiencing loneliness — and that was before the pandemic. In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General declared it a public health epidemic, warning that lacking social connection can raise the risk of premature death as much as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.
29%
increased risk of heart disease
32%
increased risk of stroke
50%
increased risk of dementia in older adults
Sources: Surgeon General's Advisory (2023), Valtorta et al. (2016), AARP Public Policy Institute (2017), WHO Commission on Social Connection (2025)
We stopped hanging out.
Americans went from about 7 hours/week with friends to under 4 — and young people (15–24) from 2.5 hours/day to just 40 minutes. The decline accelerated sharply after 2010, right as smartphones reached mass adoption, and it hasn't recovered: in 2024, young people's in-person social time hit an all-time low. The average teen now spends nearly 5 hours/day on social media.
Sources: American Time Use Survey (2003–2024), Surgeon General's Advisory (2023), Gallup (2023)
Dashed line: smartphone mass adoption (~2010). Trend lines simplified between anchor years; the social-media line is illustrative before its 2023 endpoint. Sources: American Time Use Survey 2003–2023; Kannan & Veazie (2023); Surgeon General's Advisory (2023); Gallup (2023).
This is showing up everywhere.
Fewer hours per year Americans spent with friends in 2019 than in 2003 — and the gap has widened since
Kannan & Veazie (2023), American Time Use Survey
Of U.S. adults feel lonely at least once a week
American Psychiatric Association (2026)
Deaths a year worldwide linked to loneliness — about 100 every hour
WHO Commission on Social Connection (2025)
Of teens say social media has a mostly negative effect on people their age — up from 32% in 2022
Pew Research (2025)
Teens spending 3+ hours/day on social media face double the risk of poor mental health, including symptoms of depression and anxiety. Most college students would prefer a world without Instagram or TikTok — they'd even pay to have everyone quit together. But nobody can quit alone. They're stuck in a collective trap.
Sources: Surgeon General's Advisory (2023), citing Riehm et al. (2019); Bursztyn et al., American Economic Review (2025)
The Collective Trap — College Students
Source: Bursztyn, Handel, Jiménez-Durán & Roth, “When Product Markets Become Collective Traps” — American Economic Review (2025)
The antidote isn't complicated. It's connection.
“Good relationships keep us healthier and happier.” That's the clearest finding from the world's longest study of adult life — more than 80 years and counting.
A better predictor than money. Than fame. Than even genes.
Source: Harvard Study of Adult Development — Waldinger & Schulz, The Good Life (2023)
A roadmap back to each other.
Three horizons, one direction: more time together, face to face. We start small and digital, and grow toward real, in-person places.
Free resources
First up: free online guides built around Johann Hari's Lost Connections — reconnecting to people, to nature, to meaningful work, to your past, and to shared values. The fastest place to start, and where we begin.
Building nowDigital detox cohorts
Then, groups who put their phones down together for about a month, choosing in-person connection and real goals over screens. We're still designing it.
In designConnection Centers
Our long-term vision: physical, nearly around-the-clock spaces where anyone can walk in and get plugged into local community — clubs, classes, recovery meetings, volunteering, a support group for whatever you're carrying. A true third place. The furthest off, and the reason for everything else.
The visionFirst up: free guides to help you reconnect — we're writing them now.
In Lost Connections, Johann Hari reframes loneliness as a set of connections we've lost — and can rebuild. Our first project will organize practical, no-cost ways to find your way back to each one. The guides are in development — get on the list and you'll be the first to see them.
Reconnect with people, in person
Simple guides and curated local listings to turn acquaintances into real friends, and to find the clubs, groups, and gatherings already happening near you. Connection doesn't scale through a screen; it happens face to face.
Reconnect with nature
Nearby trails, parks, and outdoor groups, plus easy challenges to get outside and feel small in a good way. Time in nature is one of the oldest cures for feeling alone.
Reconnect with meaningful work and volunteering
Curated links and local listings for volunteer opportunities and causes worth your hours — work that matters, alongside people who care about the same things you do.
Reconnect with your pain and your past
Trustworthy guides on trauma, grief, and the hard parts of being human, including how to find a support group or a counselor. You don't have to carry it alone.
Reconnect with values and community
Guides and curated links to help you find the people who share what you believe — a faith community, a recovery meeting, a cause, a crew. A place where you belong, and are missed when you're gone.
Framework adapted from Johann Hari, Lost Connections (2018).
Put the phone down. Together, out loud, for a month.
Nobody quits the screen alone — that's the trap. We're building the opposite: small groups who go phone-light for about a month, on purpose and in public, and trade the scroll for something real.
Commit out loud
You don't drift into this. A cohort starts together and says so — to each other and to the people around them. A public commitment is harder to quit on, and easier to keep.
Go a month phone-light
Not off the grid. Just intentional. About four weeks of fewer feeds and more presence, with a group going through the same thing on the same days.
Build toward something real
The hours you get back go somewhere good — a standing weekly meetup, a shared habit, a goal you actually finish. The point isn't deleting apps. It's filling the space they were taking up.
The name and format are still being shaped — cohort size, the rules, the length, how groups stay accountable. We'd rather get it right than rush it, and the best version comes from people who help design it. If you've run a group like this, or want to be in the first one, come build it with us.
Connection Centers: a living room for the whole community.
Picture a place near you, open day and night, where anyone can walk in and — within minutes — get matched to real community that fits who they are. No app. No algorithm. Just an open door and a person who's glad you came.
Get matched to your people
Tell us what you're into — hiking, faith, board games, books, parenting, a class you've always wanted to take — and walk out with a local club, group, or congregation to plug into this week.
Find support for what you're carrying
Recovery meetings, grief circles, situation-based groups like a widows' club, and others walking the same hard road. Whatever you're facing, you don't have to face it alone.
Put your hands to good work
Nearby volunteer opportunities that need exactly what you have to give. Meaningful work alongside others is one of the surest paths out of isolation.
A third place that's always open
Somewhere that isn't home and isn't work — a warm spot to drop in, share a table, join an event, or just not be alone. Open early, open late, open to everyone.
This is our long-term vision — the north star, not something that exists yet. Centers come after the resources and cohorts we're starting with now.
Build this with us.
We're at the very start. The mission is huge, almost nothing is built yet, and that's the opportunity. The people who show up now will shape what this becomes.
The Connection Cooperative is forming right now. We have a clear mission and a plan we believe in. What we need next is people — the founders, advisors, and builders who turn a plan into something real. This is ground-floor work, and the early hands leave fingerprints on everything that follows.
You don't need to do all of it. You just need to do the part that's yours.
Founding board members
Help set the direction, the values, and the foundation of a brand-new nonprofit. We want people who lead from the start, not inherit something finished.
Advisors
Bring experience in nonprofits, community organizing, mental health, or public health. Lend your judgment so we build it right the first time.
Local organizers
Know your town and the people in it. You'll help shape our first detox cohorts and, one day, the local hubs that become Connection Centers.
Builders and creators
Designers, writers, developers, and storytellers who can help create the free resources and the tools that get this off the ground.
Partner organizations
Hiking clubs, churches, recovery groups, volunteer networks, and support groups already doing the in-person work. Let's connect more people to what you already do.
Right now we're looking for people, not money.
The button opens your email app — or write us directly at theconnectioncoop@gmail.com. A real person reads every note.
We're a nonprofit in formation, building in the open.
Ending loneliness, one connection at a time.
The Connection Cooperative is brand new. We're a nonprofit in formation, working toward 501(c)(3) status. We're not soliciting donations, and gifts aren't yet tax-deductible. What we have is a direction, a first project, and an open invitation. Nothing here is built yet — that's the point of telling you now.
We'd rather build this with you than show up later with it finished. If you want to help shape what comes next — as a founding board member, advisor, volunteer, builder, or partner — we want to hear from you. And if you just want to follow along, get on the list. We'll share what we learn as we go.
An occasional update when there's something real to share. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Help build it