Reading Response #2

to Artful Design • Chapter 2: “Designing Expressive Toys”

May-Ann “Gray” Wong

6 October 2023

Music 256A / CS476A, Stanford University

Reading Response: Design That Lowers Inhibitions

From this week's reading, I'd like to respond primarily to Artful Design Principle 2.7, which argues that design can and should lower inhibitions (99). Along the way, I will also be touching upon Principles 2.5 (“design with technology, to transcend technology” (84)) and 2.6 (“technology should create calm” (86)). I think that the creation of expressive toys that can lower inhibitions is a wonderful idea, especially in today’s society, wheremany people only present a curated image via Instagram posts of “picture-perfect memories'' or TikToks of “idyllic moments.” People thus build these walls and feel some sort of external or internal pressure to present the best and most perfect persona they possibly can that these inhibitions have been further heightened instead of lowered. It presents the very act of living, socializing, interacting as a performance that can possibly be captured by friends and strangers alike through their phone, to live forever online with or without your knowledge and consent. People can no longer live or struggle to live as they did before; it has to appear perfect and effortless now. So the idea of lowering inhibitions struck me as such a potent counterattack to this current trend, and something that could potentially reunite humans and encourage play once more.

But in that same vein, I wonder how feasible this sort of artful design is between the jaws of capitalism; to change behavior for the better and to encourage genuine human connection de-emphasizes importance of the technology itself, instead focusing on the users behind the screens. This sort of seems the antithesis of what a lot of startups, VCs, board of directors, etc. want; they don’t want a lack of reliance on whatever technology they helped create, they want an addiction to profit off of. In considering social media as of late, technology does have an ability to augment human interaction, transcend boundaries, and lower inhibition, but it can also do so in a negative way. Take, for example, the anonymity that Twitter can provide and the way that this anonymity through social media can be wielded to lower inhibitions: Many people, with their inhibitions lowered through the protection of anonymity, use social media as a platform to be unnecessarily cruel, catty, and scathing towards strangers for no real reason at all, other than the fact that they might be rewarded in online interactions and clout from it. In this way, this lowered inhibition is bad, as it desensitizes individuals to one another's humanity. This, in no way, creates calm and goes against Principle 2.6. And further, due to the nature of capitalism and corporate greed, companies design social media platforms to be addicting; instead of transcending technology, they want you to use it for as long as possible, again going against Principle 2.5. As a result, I wonder if artful design can coexist with capitalist interests or if they are truly in direct opposition.