Political violence is the unintended yet predictable consequence of UX theory applied to the Attention Economy
Good button design is crucial for a positive user experience. The goal is to make buttons intuitive, easy to use, and — predictable. But is the disclosure, about participating in social media and expressing approval, full and revealing? I guess it all comes down to what you would define as a “positive experience”.
As I write this, two messed up, intertwined things are happening. Both can be directly linked to how the engagement dynamics of social media, driven by technology such as “like” buttons, has negatively impacted global politics.
First, a social media celebrity and political influencer, Charlie Kirk, has been shot dead, in what feels like a political assassination, in the USA. Like some others, I cannot claim that I had no idea who he was. Though I was not the intended demographic of his content, it was curated for me anyway by Youtube’s reels algorithm. I recognised what he represented, and the dangerous trajectory of this brand of politics. Yet, I am still shocked by the shooting — the level to which political discourse is coarsening and becoming unstable is seriously disconcerting.