we need more friction
Tech boasts a frictionless existence, but friction is part of what makes life worth living. Every time we exchange our fallible, friction-filled world for a smoother, more convenient, more predictable experience, we are chipping away at what makes us human: our souls.
The Healing Power Of Social Friction | NOEMA
- The digital world has almost no friction.
- The physical world is full of it.
Kyla Scanlon • The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction
If brains need friction but also instinctively avoid it, it’s interesting that the promise of technology has been to create a “frictionless” user experience, to ensure that, provided we slide from app to app or screen to screen, we will meet no resistance. The frictionless user experience is why we unthinkingly offload ever more information and
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There’s a common fallacy that brand friction means making things difficult for the sake of being difficult, which we wholeheartedly reject. In this regard, friction is misleading. The idea is not to make things difficult, but to go the extra mile. To put in the necessary effort. To spend that extra bit of time, energy, or dare we say...profit, to... See more
Mouthwash Studio • A Brave New (Frictionless) World
So... the digital world has nearly eliminated friction (ChatGPT writes essays, Meta's AI plays your friend). The physical world drowns in it (Newark airport, infrastructure crumbles). And for those who can afford it, friction becomes an optional aesthetic choice (West Village living, curated experiences).
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Designing Friction – a call for friction in digital culture – explores the concept of consciously reintroducing obstacles and resistance in our online interactions to foster human connections. It can be seen as a new design paradigm not focussing on seamless experiences but on human connection. What does it mean to be human?”
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