Music as Social Fabric

Designing Social Tools that Make Us More Expressive

People gather at a park in Beijing to sing together. Music-making is something of an universal social medium— it has been a part of every society in human history. (image: Laurel F. | Creative Commons)

“People who make music together cannot be enemies. At least while the music lasts.” — Paul Hindemith

Let’s face it. The “social” part of tech-mediated social media still sucks.

Developers tend to reduce the functions of social tools to news feeds, photos, video sharing, likes, and comments. It’s much harder to consider the lasting impact of the activities, or to design for the sheer experience they foster. A 2017 study (from Mediakix) found the average person, at the current rate, will spend more than five years of their lives on social media. That is literally more time than it takes to go to college—more time than you will spend eating in your E.N.T.I.R.E. L.I.F.E.!

This sheer amount of time—of life!—demands that we hold the design of social tools to a higher standard. I mean, shouldn’t such tools elevate us? Make us really feel—more expressive, truthful, and appreciative of our human connections? Right?!

But how do we design more virtuous social tools, tools that make us better?

Perhaps we can take a cue from music-making — the kind of activity that does not require you to know who you are playing music with, but will leave you feeling expressive, connected, and, well, social. If our social tools were made more like instruments and contexts for music-making, what might they look like? What would we value in such tools?

No identity? No problem! It’s about feeling connected.

1. Identity is not that important: Music goes beyond names, age, gender, culture, and location to create meaningful, authentic connection between people. For example, in Ocarina (designed 10 years ago, which is like a bazillion in app-years) had this globe feature that let’s you listen to strangers blowing into their phones from around the world (see video above). This is an anonymous social medium that is not about who is playing and how good they are, but that there are people out there making music, for the fun of it.
2. Participation is a value (dammit!): With social media there’s a lot of looking at and scrolling through but not a lot of doing things together with other people (I have a separate diatribe about “likes” and comments). Social activities like music create an opportunity for meaningful shared experiences. It puts you in the zone, and gets you out of your funk (sometimes by employing funk). As composer Paul Hindemith once said, “People who make music together, cannot be enemies. At least while the music lasts.”
3. Expression is a virtue: Social media has interactive components but wasn’t designed to go much farther than looking at and liking things. You can’t quite express yourself fully with five emojis — if we could, that would actually be super sad :(. To make something is a unique kind of joy that can only come from within. Yes, you can make a post, but when was the last time a post moved you the same way as listening to a favorite song? Or more broadly, why don’t our social tools make us feel more? Or feel more like ourselves?

This is what people are doing in Ocarina — blowing into their phones.

It is time the tools we use reflect our desire to express and to connect.

Here endeth our first rant. For more, follow me or the Artful Design series on Medium, and check out my book, Artful Design: Technology in Search of the Sublime. See you down the rabbit hole!