5 ms·
There's more than enough responsibility to go around. If we want industries to create things that counteract the problem, they'll need new processes to replace
by crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
There's more than enough responsibility to go around. If we want industries to create things that counteract the problem, they'll need new processes to replace the old ones with.
I believe the first step is the development of new design theories.
- gnicholas 9y ago> I believe the first step is the development of new design theories. I tend to agree, at least in the abstract. But what would this look like, and how would it successfully supplant the old design theories?
- crawfordcomeaux 9y agoI think bringing neuroscience and mindfulness into the mix is the way to go. How it'll supplant is simple: tack it on to human-centric design, get companies applying HCD already to adopt it, and they can show the addiction-addicted companies how to make money in a more sustainable way. Sell it to the capitalists by showing people can live longer if their well-being is higher.
- dharma1 9y agoI don't see this taking off for companies whose bottom line is directly tied into advertising (Facebook, Google etc). Apple could lead here and build some tools directly into the OS that let people easily set some custom boundaries around addictive use.
- crawfordcomeaux 9y agoThat's fine. Others will develop it and the big ones will adopt it. Or not and they'll continue to be platforms for addicting others. Once one person succeeds in figuring out a service for marketing in a way people will welcome into their home (as opposed to begrudgingly being forced to allow them), others will follow. Ads suck, so I'm betting people can get behind a platform explicitly designed for experimenting with ad tech to find things that don't.
- xg15 9y agoI'd think it's more about economic theories. If all economic incentives point to making a product more addictive, of course products will be designed that way.
- crawfordcomeaux 9y agoIt's simple to show addiction is an unsustainable configuration for pretty much any system across all economic levels.
- mark_edward 9y agoCould you do so? It's non-obvious to me.
- waterlink 9y agoThat reminds me of an amazing book "Thinking in Systems: A Primer." It is probably on my list of must-read books for software developers and other roles around them.
- crawfordcomeaux 9y agoI haven't read it, but systems theory is at the core of how I've been thinking lately. I'll check it out.
- crawfordcomeaux 9y agoIf we incompletely define addiction as a cycle of compulsions with negative consequences, it's already an unsustainable process at the individual level. We can predict (and statistics confirm this) lifespans of addicts to be lower than those of comparable non-addicts. If a business intentionally develops a userbase of addicts, they are choosing customers who will live shorter lives than others. They'll need to get more people addicted over time in order to maintain the biz or grow it. As their impact on customers rises, so does their visibility. At some point, the public will become aware of the effects and push back, making it harder to cultivate new addicts. The company will likely have to start covertly converting addicts to keep up the game, adopting addiction patterns at an organizational level. Governments will have to step in before their tax bases are affected. Is that clearer?