Jasmine Jones

7 November 2021

MUSIC 256A

Reading Response #7

This week we read Chapter 7 in Artful Design, which dove into social design and how we can design tools to connect humans and value participation. A point in the reading that stuck out to me was Principle 7.3, "Technology should strive to get out of the way of human interaction". This principle is then expanded on my mentioning that the more familiar a relationship between two people is, the less the design should interfere with their interaction, since the closeness helps 'fill in the gaps' and these interactions/relationships can only be improved by the people in them.

I agree with this sentiment, especially in light of our lecture during the second half of class on Wednesday last week. We talked about social media networks like Facebook (or Meta now, I suppose) and how they seem to destroy the authenticity and closeness of human interactions. We talked about how many interactions are watered down to either birthday posts or death posts and how all the responses to these posts and posts in a similar vein seem to be watered down human interaction. It seems like a lot of social media nowadays isn't really meant for closeness or human interaction, but rather engagement in order to monetize the time we spend on our mobile devices and the internet in any way possible. I think that as a result of this prioritization of monetization, we are really lacking in social design for technology that encourages meaningful, positive interactions. With companies like 'Meta' increasing their reach, resources, and products, I'm honestly not sure what it will take to shift this culture of design in tech towards meaningful interactions. I fear it might come to a point where it's way too late to easily switch from this culture when we realize how scary our current path has become.