In today’s day and age of oversharing, everybody and their uncle knows what you’re wearing, what you had for breakfast, where you workout before going into work, and what kind of mood you’re in. From Facebook to LinkedIn to Snapchat to Instagram to Twitter, anybody and everybody has access to your life. We are so connected to the online world, that every last detail of our lives is splashed across the web for anybody to go through. There’s just no mystery left.

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James Sun, the co-founder and chairman of Anomo social media app said,

“If you go on Facebook or Twitter, it’s really all about image management now – it’s not a place to have real authentic conversations. Today’s social networks like Tinder or Facebook say that as soon as you sign up, you have to tell the whole world about you. But we don’t think that’s how it works in the real world. You don’t go meet somebody and tell them everything about you on day one. You get to know them, you gradually reveal information.”

Image source: iTunes

If you’ve been set up on a blind date, all you have to do is Google their name and voila! Every last thing they put on the Internet, and even some things they didn’t, is at your fingertips. So how do you counter this?

With a new social media app called Anomo. Anomo encourages its users to reveal info about themselves in a less hectic pace, and is perfect for shy and/or introverts. Although Anomo started life as a location-based dating app, it quickly found a new audience and made the shift into a social network for introverts.

With the tagline, ‘Anonymous social app where identities stay private,’ Anomo offers shy users an option to mask themselves with various avatars. A user selects an avatar, enter their gender and age range, followed by an option to verify their age through Facebook. This Facebook verification happens in the back end, and other users don’t have access to this Facebook information.

Image source: iTunes

Sun said,

“The innovation here is not that you’re anonymous. It’s that you’re wearing a mask.”

What follows after a user chooses an avatar is that they made to play casual ice breaker games by placing them in a mixed-group with four other users. Anomo uses these answers to match users who answered similarly. Then there is the chat option, which helps users to reveal things about themselves little by little, whether it’s their names, passions, interests, jobs, or even pictures.

“It’s a social network for dating, friendship or building networks,” said Sun, 35.

Image source: iTunes

Also, like Twitter, there’s a limit on the characters per message, at 540. Sun believes that we are at our most open when we’re wrapped in a warm cocoon of anonymity – he mentions the following quote attributed to Oscar Wilde: “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth.”

Another important thing Sun said was that communicating via an avatar allows for ‘a more authentic discussion.’ One of the users on Anomo posted a message on the communal message board that he was struggling with depression and thinking about killing himself. Immediately, 600 other users replied to his message with words of encouragement and was successful in talking him out of it.

Image source: iTunes

Although anonymity is highly valued at Anomo, users’ ages and gender are sorted and verified through their Facebook profiles, and this is how the app keeps users restricted to their own age ranges. For example, teenagers and people in their 30s and 40s are prevented from interacting.

Every conversation on Anomo is logged to protect users. Talking about the possibility of a user misusing the app to stalk another user or cause them harm, Sun said,

“People have to user their judgment in the chats and where they are and who wants to meet up. Those things already happen on every platform. If I were to tell you we could solve that, I would be lying. That’s something every company has to watch out for.”

Image source: iTunes

Sun said that people who meet through Anomo and reveal their identities to each other can go on to other platforms to continue their interaction, but that most choose to remain for conversations with other users.

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He said,

“It’s targeted towards anyone who wants to protect their privacy and still meet new people, which tends to skew towards people who are – I wouldn’t say ‘shy’ is the right word – but who are more careful and introverted.”

What do you think of Anomo? Would you use it? Do you think it brings anything new to the table? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

Featured image source: Anomo