University has always been a place where you make great friends for life. Social media means everyone can easily make as many online friends as they like, and ever more students go to university, meaning more potential friends to make. So surely things now are better than ever. And yet many students suffer from loneliness while at university. We somehow seem to have ever greater disconnection the more connections we make. Klara Brodahl realised there was a novel need here that no one was addressing well and decided to try to solve it for the final year project of her computer science degree. Her solution was StudyBuddy and with the support of an angel investor she has now set up a startup company and is rolling it out for real.
A loneliness epidemic
In the digital age, university students face an unexpected challenge—loneliness. Although they’re more “connected” than ever through social media and virtual interactions, the quality of these connections is often shallow. A 2023 study, for example, found that 92% of students in the UK feel lonely at some point during their university life. This “loneliness epidemic” has profound effects, contributing to issues like anxiety, depression, and struggling with their programme.
During her own university years, Klara Brodahl had experienced first hand the challenge of forming meaningful friends in an environment where everyone seemed socially engaged online but weren’t always connected in real life. She soon discovered that it wasn’t just her but a shared struggle by students across the country. Inspired by this, she set out to write a program that would fill the void in student’s lives and bridge the gap between studying and social life.
Combatting loneliness in the real world
She came up with StudyBuddy: a mobile app designed to combat student loneliness by supporting genuine, in-person connections between university students, not just virtual ones. Her aim was that it would help students meet, study, and connect in real time and in shared spaces.
She realised that technology does have the potential to strengthen social bonds, but how it’s designed and used makes all the difference. The social neuroscientist John Cacioppo has pointed out that using social media primarily as a destination in its own right often leaves people feeling distant and dissatisfied. However, when technology is designed to serve as a bridge to offline human engagement, it can reduce loneliness and improve well-being. StudyBuddy embodies this approach by encouraging students to connect in person rather than trying to replace meeting face-to-face.
Study together in the real world
Part of making this work is in having reasons to meet for real. Klara realised that the need to study, and the fact that doing this in groups rather than alone can help everyone do better, could provide the excuse for this. StudyBuddy, therefore, integrates study goals with social interaction, allowing friendships to form around shared academic interests—an ideal icebreaker for those who feel nervous in traditional social settings.
The app uses location-based technology to connect students for co-study sessions, making in-person meetings easy and natural. Through a live map, students can see where others are checked in nearby at study spots like libraries, cafes, or student common areas. They can join existing study groups or start their own. The app uses university ID verification to help ensure connections are built on a trusted network.
From idea to startup company
Klara didn’t originally plan for StudyBuddy to become a real company. Like many graduates, she thought starting a business was something to perhaps try later, once she had some professional experience from a more ‘normal’ graduate job. However, when the graduate scheme she won a place on after graduating was unexpectedly delayed, she found herself with time on her hands. Rather than do nothing she decided to keep working on the app as a side project. It was at this point that StudyBuddy caught the attention of an angel investor, whose enthusiasm for the app gave Klara the confidence to keep going.
When her graduate scheme finally began, she was therefore already deeply invested in StudyBuddy. Trying to manage both roles, she quickly realised she preferred the challenge and creativity of her startup work over the graduate scheme. And when it became impossible to balance both, she took a leap of faith, quitting her graduate job to focus on StudyBuddy full-time—a decision that has since paid off. She gained early positive feedback, ran a pilot at Queen Mary University of London, and won early funding for investors willing to invest in what was essentially still an idea, rather than a product with a known market. As a result StudyBuddy has gradually turned into a useful mission-driven platform, providing students with a safe, real-world way to connect.
Making a difference
StudyBuddy has the potential to transform the university experience by reducing loneliness and fostering authentic, in-person friendships. By rethinking what engagement in the digital age means, the app also serves as a model for how technology can promote meaningful social interaction more generally. Klara has shown that with thoughtful design, technology can be a powerful tool for bridging digital and physical divides, creating a campus environment where students thrive both academically and socially. Her experience also shows how the secret to being a great entrepreneur is to be able to see a human need that no one else has seen or solved well. Then, if you can come up with a creative solution that really solves that need, your ideas can become reality and really make a difference to people’s lives.
– Klara Brodahl, StudyBuddy and Paul Curzon, Queen Mary University of London
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