How Design Can Make Tech Products Less Addictive
Product design doesn’t have to make dependency the priority
It’s the summer of 2018, the summer of Fortnite, and we all know we are addicted. Addicted to email, Snapchat, Instagram, Fortnite, Facebook. We swap outdoor time on the trail for indoor time around the console. Our kids log into Snapchat every day on vacation to keep their streaks alive and then get lost in the stream.
We move less and watch more. In particular, the rise of the smartphone tipped the balance. It is now our omnipresent companion, to the point that in research studies, subjects prefer electric shocks to being left, deviceless, to their own devices. Needless notifications flood us on date nights, at family time, and at sports events, invariably when we are supposed to be in the moment. And then there’s Netflix, guiding us into insomnia and sleep deprivation as we blissfully binge watch, an act of willful ignorance of the fact that even small diminutions of shut-eye can cause bumps in depression and significant declines in cognitive functioning. An increasing pile of evidence points to our obsessive use of tech products as diminishing the most important parts of our lives — our relationship with family and friends, our work lives, and our physical and mental health.
