“What’s bad for the hive is bad for the bee” 

-Marcus Aurelius  

Your Hive

When emotional support is needed by someone in times of heightened difficulties, our Hive app alerts a network of friends, family, or other associates—a hive—who can support each other, to reach out to the hive member in distress.

Hive is not a social app; rather, it’s a community app to help people support each other in periods of intensified need. The app runs in the background and reaches out only when it senses distress. When the Hive feature detects that a member is experiencing elevated fear, insecurity, mental instability, rage, depression, and so on, it broadcasts an alert to every other member of the hive. In this way, it acts like a silent sentinel that steps forward only when needed to head off regrettable or tragic outcomes. The Hive software monitors only for negative emotions and in no way snoops into the private details of a user’s life.

You can create multiple hives, each with a purpose and membership of your choosing.

Many situations in life today can trigger an alert. Students in school, whether at home or on-site, elderly persons living in isolation, people coping with a mental health problem or the pain of divorce or a relationship breakup, people struggling to stay clean and sober or recently released from incarceration, need a network of supportive people—and all such challenges existed before the pandemic brought unforeseen economic insecurity or other stressors to nearly all of humanity. Some of the traumas amplified by the pandemic have increased instances of domestic violence, substance abuse, and mass shootings (for certain demographics).

Why a Community App?

Humans are social creatures. We laugh together, cry together, and live together. Truly, we need each other.

This is not to say that we don’t need “me time” and our privacy. Indeed, before anybody else, we truly need ourselves.  According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, humans’ need for self-actualization is almost as important as their need for love and belonging. Both needs have a place on Maslow’s hierarchy. A fundamental need is for a person to love oneself, and having others who love and care for us are almost as important. We need a positive and loving environment among people that care for us.

A community is a group of people bound together out of emotional resonance or for some purpose. Whether by bonds of family or friendship or for a common purpose, a healthy community has the best interests of every member in mind and at heart. The real strength of a community lies not in its size but in the collective commitment that the community has to each member. The stronger the commitment, the stronger is the community.

How Supportive is a Community that Exists Only on a Social Medium?

We must remember that our social persona is just an image of ourselves and very far from the full story of our existence. And yet, when we compare ourselves to others, we lose sight of the good things that we have.

Too often, as we scroll through social media, we look at people we are following or admiring from afar. While we have a strong personal connection with some, there are plenty of people with whom we feel no meaningful connection. Furthermore, in social media we tend to put the quantity of contacts over quality, and we want to believe we are enjoying the company of others when we really are alone.  Without in-person interaction, it’s easy to feel disconnected from our communities, especially during a worldwide pandemic. 

The times of isolation and stress are why we built the Hive app, a digital way of creating a supportive network among your relationships. As a silent sentinel, the Hive app encourages community only by its responsiveness to difficulty. Any Presence user with the Hive app can be a member of multiple hives. Your friends, family members, recovery group members, dojo members, therapists, fellow online gamers, local volunteer group, veteran’s group, religious or spiritual group, or anyone else can be in a purpose-specific hive.

How the Hive App Works

Hive uses AI to analyze the sentiments that members transmit in text messages, LinkedIn, Facebook, and so on (hive members choose the platforms to monitor). When the app detects that a member is sending out or receiving alarming messages (such as bullying or stalking), the hive members receive an alert. The members open the alert and consider what action to take. Members can check in on the affected member, coordinate with other members, and provide immediate support.    

Parents are unobtrusively able to safeguard their children’s social media presence while not invading their privacy even if not “friends” with their children on social media. However, keep in mind that the Hive feature is not a surveillance app. It is used only to track sentiment that suggests a member of the hive is struggling.

Start Discussing Data Privacy and Cyberbullying

Respecting data privacy is a core belief of our organization, and we do everything we can to ensure that parents, children, and our users in general, feel safe online. Use the Presence app to start a conversation about data privacy and how the random spread of online presence can open the door to cyberbullying.

Protecting our online persona isn’t a simple, one-click task. But when we work together, we can make it much easier to detect when a person might need help. We recently published a two-part series of articles about cyberbullying and how to tell if a loved one could be experiencing cyberbullying and in need of help. 

Start building your hive on Presence and start the conversation about cyberbullying and data privacy in your community. If you need any help getting started or would like to provide product feedback, we’d love to hear from you! Contact us at support@presence.global

To learn more about protecting the privacy of your data, read our list of 10 tips for protecting your online privacy.

Join the Movement #PrivacyFirst