This is a good topic overall, I'm not convinced of the particular example of infinite scrolling, but I do definitely want to see a movement toward products that don't try to overtake your life, and also make a point of it.
Why am I not convinced of the seemingly obvious infinite scroll example? It's not addressing the root problem, and we need to first and foremost think critically of the substance, rather than UI ergonomics. No doubt UI ergonomics can play a role, but I'd rather see people think about how to avoid having an infinite pool of addictive content in the first place. How can we create systems that are inherently limited by their intent, rather than just making the UI worse (although pagination in terms of design is anyway a contentious subject).
That sounds vague, so I'll give a few examples:
- An email service that only sends you your mail every day or x time interval, so you don't feel compelled to keep checking for new things.
- A social network that only lets you make small groups of friends with no global feed at all, so you don't need an algorithm to filter out all the noise and rank everyone's post behind the scenes.
As an aside, just take a moment to let that sink in, in case you haven't. There's a hidden AI deciding how important your friends' thoughts and photos are to you, to keep you addicted to content and keep scrolling, in an effort to show you more ads and make more money. It does so by recording everything you do on the service, and also things you do on other websites. This is not a sci-fi dystopia movie plot, this is what Facebook fundamentally is.
The "but it's free" argument I understand, and accepted for a long while also, but more recently I've started to reject this as a sound argument. Is it really so that if something is free, it gets a pass? I don't think that's true outside the internet. If someone's giving away free home insurance, and "only" requires you to have cameras installed in every room so they can better asses the responsible party, etc., would we as a society really look at that and say "but it's free" and move on with our lives? Hard to prove, but I'm doubtful that this wouldn't receive a massive backlash. What if the "free" plan was the only one available, and there were no comparable insurance companies around to reasonably switch to? What if they were using the recordings to sell data about you to ad companies?
It's free, yes, and sure, I could have "nothing to hide", but the idea of a company recording me in my home and selling how I behave to other companies to make money and get me to buy more stuff is still a fundamentally perverse arrangement.
Well, went a little off topic there, I suppose. But my point being is that I'd like to see services that actively try to make the product usage time finite from the concept, rather than just making the UI more frustrating to use.
Why am I not convinced of the seemingly obvious infinite scroll example? It's not addressing the root problem, and we need to first and foremost think critically of the substance, rather than UI ergonomics. No doubt UI ergonomics can play a role, but I'd rather see people think about how to avoid having an infinite pool of addictive content in the first place. How can we create systems that are inherently limited by their intent, rather than just making the UI worse (although pagination in terms of design is anyway a contentious subject).
That sounds vague, so I'll give a few examples: - An email service that only sends you your mail every day or x time interval, so you don't feel compelled to keep checking for new things.
- A social network that only lets you make small groups of friends with no global feed at all, so you don't need an algorithm to filter out all the noise and rank everyone's post behind the scenes.
As an aside, just take a moment to let that sink in, in case you haven't. There's a hidden AI deciding how important your friends' thoughts and photos are to you, to keep you addicted to content and keep scrolling, in an effort to show you more ads and make more money. It does so by recording everything you do on the service, and also things you do on other websites. This is not a sci-fi dystopia movie plot, this is what Facebook fundamentally is.
The "but it's free" argument I understand, and accepted for a long while also, but more recently I've started to reject this as a sound argument. Is it really so that if something is free, it gets a pass? I don't think that's true outside the internet. If someone's giving away free home insurance, and "only" requires you to have cameras installed in every room so they can better asses the responsible party, etc., would we as a society really look at that and say "but it's free" and move on with our lives? Hard to prove, but I'm doubtful that this wouldn't receive a massive backlash. What if the "free" plan was the only one available, and there were no comparable insurance companies around to reasonably switch to? What if they were using the recordings to sell data about you to ad companies?
It's free, yes, and sure, I could have "nothing to hide", but the idea of a company recording me in my home and selling how I behave to other companies to make money and get me to buy more stuff is still a fundamentally perverse arrangement.
Well, went a little off topic there, I suppose. But my point being is that I'd like to see services that actively try to make the product usage time finite from the concept, rather than just making the UI more frustrating to use.