Could I Have Some More Friction in My Life, Please?
A clip from “Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy” features a former executive of an online retailer explaining how motivated they were to make buying easy. Like, incredibly easy. So easy, in fact, that their goal was to “reduce your time to think a little bit more critically about a purchase you thought you wanted to make.” Why? Because if you pause for even a moment, you might realize you don’t actually want whatever you’re about to buy.
Been there. Ready to buy something and the slightest inconvenience surfaces — like when I can’t remember the precise order of my credit card’s CCV number and realize I’ll have to find my credit card and look it up — and that’s enough for me to say, “Wait a second, do I actually want to move my slug of a body and find my credit card? Nah.”
That feels like the socials too.
The algorithms. The endless feeds. The social interfaces. All engineered to make you think less about what you’re consuming, to think less critically about reacting or responding or engaging.
Don’t think, just scroll.
Don’t think, just like.
Don’t think, just repost.
And now with AI don’t think at all.[1]
Because if you have to think, that’s friction. Friction is an engagement killer on content, especially the low-grade stuff. Friction makes people ask, “Is this really worth my time?”
Maybe we need a little more friction in the world. More things that merit our time. Less things that don’t.
It’s kind of ironic how the things we need present so much friction in our lives (like getting healthcare) while the things we don’t need that siphon money from our pockets (like online gambling[2]) present so little friction you could almost inadvertently slip right into them.
It’s as if The Good Things™️ in life are full of friction while the hollow ones are frictionless.