Questing for Coherence

First, what is healthy?

I observed that I had a lot of anxiety and attachment to my social media accounts.

Second, what is the nature of the mind?

I realized that my mind is LOUD. And uncontrolled, and sometimes violent and aggressive – and bossy, and abusive, and simply exhausting. Anyone who has sat down in silence and found themselves uncomfortably bored has this experience. And the constant use of technology means that we are never bored, we are never in silence, and our minds are always active – from when we wake up to when we go to sleep.

So what’s wrong with how we create now?

In the tech field, we create products that people enjoy using. In order to make money, we create products that people crave using. In general, we generate a feeling of addiction, by attaching user’s core identity and feelings of self worth to numbers. And we do it all subconsciously. The human mind is only capable of holding on average 7 items in working memory.

So how can we create in a healthy and profitable way?

In my job as a UX Designer and Product Manager, I have to use my empathy and understanding of how the mind works to create enjoyable apps to engage and keep users. For the company, users are dollars, and engaged users are more dollars. However, as a human – I can’t in good faith design products that create addiction and foster craving and FOMO in people, especially young children and adolescents.