MySpace-Inspired App to Help Gen Z Connect: ‘Socializing is More Important Than Ever’

Published: April 25, 2024

MySpace-Inspired App to Help Gen Z Connect: ‘Socializing is More Important Than Ever’

By Movieguide® Contributor

A new app is taking inspiration from MySpace to create an “engaging” social media experience for Gen Z.

“What I see right now is all social media is just media—it’s not social anymore,” Tiffany Zhong, the creator of Nospace, explained. “Everyone is ogling at each other’s lives and personalities, but no one is engaging with them. That’s the problem we’re solving: connection with others and self-expression.”

Zhong was inspired by MySpace when creating her app, specifically features like customizing your own page and a lack of algorithmic post-shuffling.

“All these other apps these days, it’s just algorithmic. A lot of posts just get pushed down if you don’t get engagement,” she said.

Other features, per its description on the App Store, include adding your top eight favorite books and movies as well as updates on what you’re currently into.

“It’s like an internet neighborhood where you can hang out and meet new people you like—all you have to do is be yourself,” the description reads.

Zhong’s long-term goal is to help young people find friends with similar interests and get more comfortable expressing their own interests and opinions.

“Loneliness is increasing because of a variety of reasons,” she shared. “We don’t have as much to talk about with our IRL friends anymore because everyone watches different content. It’s not like we have the same Sunday shows, or the same shows that drop the same episodes every week.”

She continued, “It feels lonely to be in a world where we’re just watching our own content, or our own personalized feed of content and videos, instead of connecting with others. Socializing is so much more important than ever. It doesn’t exist anymore.”

Nospace is the latest in a line of apps designed to recreate earlier social media experiences.

“Other examples include Youni, which describes itself as a platform for sharing IRL memories, and PI.FYI, an app built around recommendations (‘You can think of PI.FYI as Letterboxd or Goodreads meets Myspace,’ its website reads),” Bustle reported. “It seems that, along with Y2K fashion and point-and-shoot cameras, Gen Zers are also pining for a return to 2000s social media.”

While new apps designed to facilitate connection are good, social media as a whole still creates a major problem for young people’s mental health. Movieguide® previously reported on the dangers of using social media at a young age:

US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, has said that he believes 13 is too young for children to join social media platforms.

“I, personally, based on the data I’ve seen, believe that 13 is too early, it’s a time where it’s really important for us to be thoughtful about what’s going into how they think about their own self-worth and their relationships and the skewed and often distorted environment of social media often does a disservice to many of those children,” Murthy said.

Many large social media platforms such as Meta and Twitter currently allow users to join their platforms at the age of 13. With little regulation when it comes to age, these companies have no real incentive not to allow younger kids to join, especially when their competitors are.

Murthy had sympathy for parents, acknowledging that limiting social media use is not a simple task. He suggested parents may have to unite to protect their children from social media.

“If parents can band together and say you know, as a group, we’re not going to allow our kids to use social media until 16 or 17 or 18 or whatever age they choose, that’s a much more effective strategy in making sure your kids don’t get exposed to harm early,” Murthy said.