Can adding a little friction back to user interfaces save us?
Show notes We talk about the currently-trendy concept of (design) friction and how it is necessary but not sufficient for right action on the Internet.
Links * Facebook admits that it intentionally defrauded children by making it easy to buy in-game purchases * The creator of the retweet button now thinks it was a bad idea (Mea culpa: We stated this article was written in Wired but it was in BuzzFeed) * Dark patterns * Alt-Meat Trounces Animal Meat’s Massive Inefficiencies * The Launch: After two decades of research and development, WA 38 lands this fall. It could disrupt an entire industry.—It’s an apple. * Manton Reece on hashtags and curation—note that Chris said these were totally curated, and they’re not; but they’re also designed not to behave like trends and hashtags on Twitter. + Search in Micro.blog + Books on Micro.blog * A short history of Gamergate * A compendium of articles concerning how Gamergate changed the Internet * Data arguing that Gamergate was more about harassment than ethics * A growing list of former tech company workers who regret their design decisions * The Center for Humane Tech’s podcast Your Undivided Attention * Tim-Berners Lee on his disappointments and frustrations with what people did to the world wide web
Things Chris has written in relation to this episode: * Friction is the Friend of Serendipity
Previous episodes: * 2.03: Impervious Scale—The Roman Empire and Friendster Have Things to Say to You * 6.08: People Do Reject Technologies, Part 2—Nuclear weapons, nuclear waste, and how to argue well with intractable disagreements. * 7.01: Do We Really Need to Keep the Internet Around? Season 7’s charter—by way of a rollicking argument about Alan Jacobs’ The Year of Our Lord 1943 and Tolkien’s idea of eucatastrophe.
Music “Stig of the Dump / Ogglet (Live)” - El Toppo (By the way, Stig of the Dump is a classic British children’s story, just in case you were wondering. Stephen looked it up after the show.) - “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
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