Tech on your terms

Before the age of technological distraction, we lived more in tune with our bodies. We spent more time outdoors where the sun regulated our circadian rhythms, which has been scientifically proven to reduce anxiety and depression. Without constant distraction, people sat in their boredom, which became drivers of artistic endeavors, creative ideas, and human connection.

But how many of us can remember the last time we were truly bored?Drove without music, or sat in a coffee shop simply looking out the window?

Today, our digital devices have optimized our lives to the point of exhaustion. In pursuit of a frictionless experience, technology has eradicated the natural pauses that once grounded us in our bodies and environments. Yet research shows that taking breaks throughout the day is critical for restoring energy, improving focus, and inspiring creativity.

THE MYTH ABOUT OPTIMIZATION

We currently subscribe to the myth that if everything is efficient and optimized, our lives will feel easy and pain-free. We can order just about anything with the press of a button, or access infinite entertainment to fill every idle moment. Machines clean our clothes, dishes, and soon, we’ll be able to offload daily chores to household robots. At work, we can use AI to automate tedious tasks or avoid the sometimes painful “stuckness” of thinking. Everything around us is designed to feel effortless, yet somehow it feels anything but.

For decades, businesses have equated technological progress with the most optimized path. In many ways we’ve arrived, yet we’re more unhappy than ever. Since 2005, the depression and anxiety among young people has increased by 63%, due, in part, to “greater levels of social media engagement, academic stress, and economic stress.”

Most of us know this experience firsthand: We get lost in a social media or news feed, only to emerge an hour later, disembodied, losing the throughline of the initial query. Or we pick up a phone reflexively, even if there’s nothing pressing to do or see.

Research shows that overuse of smartphones can make us more in touch with our screens and less in touch with our bodies. This has only been exacerbated as platforms have shifted away from user autonomy and toward extractive profit models. As journalist and coiner of the term enshittification, Cory Doctorow wrote in a story for Wired, “Technological self-determination is at odds with the natural imperatives of tech businesses. They make more money when they take away our freedom—our freedom to speak, to leave, to connect.”

In response, a growing movement of young people has begun leaving social media platforms, even ditching their cell phones altogether. In a New York Times story featuring ‘Luddite’ teens, one teen was quoted as saying, “things instantly changed. I started using my brain. It made me observe myself as a person,” after trading their smartphone for a flip phone. Their goal isn’t for everyone to get a flip phone, but to inspire people to reflect on their relationships with technology.

DESIGN THAT GIVES USERS CONTROL

With AI embedded into our devices and digital platforms, the tension between user autonomy and technological progress is growing. Our tools are evolving to anticipate our habits and desires, often outside of cognitive awareness.

Now is our opportunity to step back and determine what we want technology to do for us, and what we want to do for ourselves. For designers, it’s about questioning how we might create products and experiences that restore control to the user over their time and attention. Only when we begin designing for moments of pause, can we begin to address our fundamental human needs.

In the same way handwriting can slow your thoughts, “dumb phones” force users to pause and contemplate their next moves and interactions. Light Phone and Mudita are examples of a design philosophy that give control back to the user. Instead of the typical smartphone that commodifies your attention, dumb phones are designed as a tool to be used, giving users the ability to customize the apps loaded onto the device. These phones are not for everyone. The experience is intentionally slow and far from seamless. The friction is a forcing mechanism for users to pause.

Like handwriting, resonant breathing has been proven to improve heart rate variability, a metric that can indicate wellbeing and mood. Devices intentionally designed with minimal features, like Ohm, help users slow down and reconnect to their body’s signals through breathwork.

On the creative side, publishing platforms like Substack and Inoreader allow users to choose who they read and subscribe to. These intentionally designed platforms allow users to build their own news feeds and maximize their time rather than being fed content based on algorithms.

FINAL THOUGHTS

We may have different aspirations for our relationships with technology, but we should all feel autonomous in choosing them. Questioning the never-ending optimization is the first step to determining what we want our collective future to look like. 

For designers, it’s about not assuming the maximum, most feature-rich experience, but about distilling a product to its essential utility and allowing people to form their own relationship to it.

Designing for natural pauses allows us all to feel a little more present and in tune with our core needs, and how to address them. So perhaps the next wave of technology isn’t about doing everything for us, but instead about giving us back the space to choose.

Dan Harden is the founder and CEO of Whipsaw.

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