We check our mobiles 85 times a day, habitually and without conscious planning. We respond to Facebook likes as rats do to sugar solution. We let YouTube’s algorithms determine what our kids watch. We choose potential life partners by swiping right. We like it when websites tell us what to buy, we converse using pictures of small yellow faces, and we have conversations with our appliances.
Sure, all of these things are easy to do. But at what point does engaging with technology become too easy? Should we create user experiences that maintain a bit of friction, to remind us that we still have the capacity for complex social interactions and effortful decision making?
This session won’t give you all of the answers, but it will raise some interesting questions.
31. 31
System 1 thinking
“System 1 operates automatically
and quickly, with little or no effort
and no sense of voluntary control”
32. 32
System 2 thinking
“System 2 allocates attention to
the effortful mental activities that
demand it, including complex
computations”
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What does all of this mean?
We are easily swayed by things that
are easy
Especially when we are distracted
Or don’t really care about what we are
doing
34. 35
Because our mental shortcuts are
predictable…
We can be easily led into making
certain choices
42. 43
Two types of ethics
Deontological: rule-based, focuses on
actions and intentions
Consequentialist: harm- or happiness-
based, focuses on outcomes
43. 44
In reality, we are easily swayed
We give ourselves credit for past
actions
We don’t know what the overall
impact of our actions might be
We know we are not being watched
(and intentions)
47. 48
Review
1. When we are online, we are often alone
2. So we don’t think about the social impact of our
actions
3. Especially when we act without really thinking about it
at all
4. And let’s face it, we are ethically flexible under the
best of circumstances
5. What are the implications of this?
6. And what kind of world do we want to live in?
53. 54
“The easier it is to use Amazon,
the more powerful Amazon
becomes — and thus the easier
it becomes to use Amazon.
Convenience and monopoly
seem to be natural bedfellows.”
“It is about minimizing the mental
resources, the mental exertion,
required to choose among the
options that express ourselves.”
54. 55
“But being a person is only partly about having
and exercising choices. It is also about how we
face up to situations that are thrust upon us,
about overcoming worthy challenges and
finishing difficult tasks — the struggles that help
make us who we are. What happens to human
experience when so many obstacles and
impediments and requirements and preparations
have been removed?”
55. Presentation title / Footer text 56Photo by Morvanic Lee on Unsplash
Jessica Cameron
@jessscameron
#darkerpatterns
User Vision
@UserVision