Back

The Mental Health Startup Bubble: Treating Loneliness with Apps We’ve built 50,000+ mental health apps. Meditation trackers. Mood journals. AI companions. And yet — loneliness keeps rising. Depression rates are at historic highs. The problem isn’t access. It’s that we’ve mistaken engagement for healing. Engagement ≠ Progress. An app can make you tap more, scroll more, or log in every day. But those metrics measure presence, not progress. Healing happens in the space between - when someone listens, checks in, or shares a story that makes you feel less alone. Apps rarely recreate that. The next generation of mental health products must go beyond dopamine design. Every feature and function should serve one deeper goal - to understand the emotion, behavioural patterns, and context of the person behind the screen. To use methods rooted in clinical psychology and CBT principles, and add back what tech quietly removed - a human touch. Because mental health isn’t a game to win. It’s a relationship to nurture.