A red dot outside the app, because a leader thinks you should follow certain people. A red dot inside the app, because you should discover new people. Another red dot inside the app, because you should turn on contacts access. A red dot outside the app, because someone a leader thinks you really care about posted a story and you haven’t seen it. Another red dot inside the app, because something in the marketplace showed up, another car, even though you bought one three days ago. A banner spawning half the screen, because you turned off notifications.
The visual noise, the mental noise, the audible noise, the sensory noise, the helplessness.
You oblige, and scroll through a feed biased in the order of the people that a leader thinks you care the most about. Followed by ads, some of which are very spammy, that you mark as offensive, yet still see them 10 minutes later.
Multiply this by numerous apps, many of which want you to bend over, raise your leg and put it behind your neck while eating a sandwich in order to successfully close a video.
Sure, with Material Design, flatter imagery, and high density true color displays things look beautiful. But what about the user experience? The user experiences manipulation. What about the user interface? Its not a user interface anymore, its street signs to drive you to perform actions and share information that you would not want to share otherwise, like turning on your contacts access. Its not an interface for the user, its an interface that uses you.
