Form-From: A Design Space of Social Media Systems

Social media’s combination of global reach,

performance metrics, platform design, content

format, and algorithmic interference have changed

how creators make for others, and how others

perceive and interact with creators' work.

The results are an eternal presence, persistent

feedback, an unrealistic expectation of virality,

harmful social comparison, crea

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The Internet offers us the first major opportunity to introduce new, digitally-native information architectures that improve our understanding of the world through added context and relation.

As we have seen in the previous theses, our digital environment:

Regulates our lives towards a smaller number of paths purposely designed by others rather than trails more fortuitous and exploratory.

Builds up a monolithic authentic self rather than a lush set of mutually-enriching contextual identities.

Is heavily focused on categorising people, whic

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The affordances of different types of online space change how information is produced, circulated, and remembered across platforms. What happens when platforms enable the archival of information? What happens when they encourage collective experiences versus personal, inward-facing ones?