I don’t even know how much it helps people stay connected anymore since the shift to mobile. I was in an antique store recently and came upon a vintage “correspondence desk” which is basically a desk specialized for sorting and preparing mail. Back when people used to keep in touch by writing letters to each other this is what people with active remote friendships did. They’d spend a couple of hours at this desk reading letters they’ve received and sitting down to compose replies.

This is basically how social media was when you needed a computer to go online. You’d sit and sift through your feeds and there’d be message chains you respond to. You’re not really doing anything else while you’re doing that and you’re putting it out of mind once you step away. When Twitter first started getting big it was sort of a joke that people are talking to you while on the toilet. The idea that you were only ever half engaged with anything you’re doing was remarkable enough to be worth pointing out instead of taken for granted.

It’s just a lot more focused and intentional when you’re dedicating time and headspace to the task instead of “microdosing” on connection via a dopamine lottery. Even if you took away the ads and the interpolation of creator-content crowding out the connections with people you actually know, I think designing for an infinite scroll just inherently makes the thing less human-centered. It sets it up so you’re interacting with these atomized bits of ‘content’ rather than people.

That is because platforms both enable us and exploit us, they exploit both those who create/comment and those who read. They perform a necessary function but extract the value from it for their own good.