A major day-to-day struggle for me is retaining self control at my computer. As one who generally works primarily in the digital media space, distractions are not only infinitely abundant but also very easy to get lost into. Not only does everything happen to be “a few clicks away,” they are such efficient traps by design.

In the grand scheme of things the stress and discomfort induced by such an ecosystem of intentional distraction (decades of attention economics at work) may seem somewhat petty, but maybe it’s worth investigating. Behavioral psychology and the marketing industry as a whole have been around for a while now, but the digital context within which we experience it today on such a massive scale is still fairly new. How can the discomfort caused by our interactions in these systems and the resulting feedback loops that psychologically impact users for clicks and eyeballs be recreated in such a designed experience in order to enlighten rather than obscure and distract?

I figured the best way to address this question would be to replicate such a web experience with exaggerated effects. The experience I designed has a progressive structure— the user follows a linear path while the uncomfortable elements build. From page to page the user is slowly conditioned to increasingly intense visual, auditory and intellectual stimuli. In the future I intend to also incorporate more heavily political content to attempt to emulate the “philosophical dizziness” brought forth by an overload of information/”soft propaganda”/conspiracy theorist fanaticism from all sides of the political spectrum at once. Ideally the experience would go on until the user is too uncomfortable to progress any further.

The experience would be contained in an embraced magic circle. The circle involves an already existing reality within which it exists (the web and it’s capacity to cause you to procrastinate), but the difference within the magic circle is that you are forced to confront an active awareness that you’re wasting time, or simply how you waste time in general, and how it makes you feel.

Option 2. A Difficult Conversation

Taking a cue from Chris Crawford, conceptualize your design for an interactive device, application, or experience as a literal difficult conversation. Script out the conversation as the starting point for the design. Test throughout the process to determine if participants are hearing what you intend from your design, and aim to have a device or experience that can keep a person in the challenging conversation long enough to have a meaningful experience.

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Concept/purpose: The idea is to build a series of interconnected web pages filled with visual tactics commonly found all over the web to invoke extreme sensory discomfort toward its users. I also want to address our interactions in these systems and the resulting feedback loops that psychologically impact users. I aim for it to serve as somewhat of a timestamp for the current state of our digital landscape, and my hope is that it will prompt people to think about this kind of emotional/behavioral stimuli we all subject ourselves to.

Specific tactics to invoke:

• Hook users with an infinite stream of memes / low-quality content with “can’t look away” qualities (excluding x-rated content for this assignment because I feel that the likelihood of dealing with institutional politics here would hijack the assigned purpose, but more so because there is absolutely plenty of anodyne content which is just as effective at garnering and holding attention)
• Invoke anxiety in users by juxtaposing the attention-grabbing content stream with the recognition that they are wasting their time, perhaps procrastinating even
• Sensory overload (as I learned from my journey prototype, it should be SUBTLE and long-form; blasting users immediately would make intentions immediately obvious and possibly incentivize leaving before being hooked)

Conversation:

user’s internal monologue (1) while interacting with anthropomorphized website (2)

1: “I’m experiencing a fleeting desire to escape from reading the next paragraph of this essay, I’m craving some quick mindless satisfaction”

*Opens new tab, goes to the site*

2: “I have a new visitor. Let me show them content that will bring them immediate satisfaction so that they stay.”

*Pulls the most viral post from imgur.com’s API and displays them.*

1: “Oh look at this adorable puppy!”

*Scrolls down*

2: “User wants more.”

*Pulls the next most viral posts from the imgur API and begins an infinite scrolling mechanism.*

“Perhaps user might be interested in shopping.”

*Displays an ad in the screen’s corner*

*Some time passes*

*Shows “You might be interested in…” link to Forbes 30 Under 30 and similar articles*

1: “Wish I had that much success. What the hell am I doing with my life? I think I’ve wasted enough time here.”

*Begins scrolling back up to the top of the page*

2: “User has abandoned the meme feed, let’s introduce them to other things they might like”

*Displays link to chat room*

1: “Wow I haven’t seen one of these in ages, I wonder what goes on here.”

*Enters chat room page*

2:”User has entered chat room page, let’s make sure this opportunity isn’t wasted.”

*Displays pop-up modal ad*

*Loads eye-catching background*

*Enables emojis in chat*

*Loads some more “You might also like” links to articles about anxiety, procrastination, rare success stories, global issues, luxury goods*

1:”Oh look Trump said a thing on Twitter and embarrassed himself in front of a prime minister, there are riots happening in Charlottesville and a supervolcano is going to erupt any day now in Yellowstone, am I even going to live to retirement age? The people in this chat room aren’t very friendly, I think they’re trolling me. I can’t get caught up in internet arguments but this person is pissing me off. This background is giving me a headache. Maybe I should see if I can find a decent shirt on Ebay, I don’t have any shirts that go my pants. I can’t afford to buy new clothes anyway. This page runs really slowly. I might go back to the imgur feed after reading that article that’s tangentially related to my work— oh, I forgot I’d distracted myself with this stupid site. I should go back now”

*User closes tab and reflects on the experience*

 

http://andrewmccausland.net/designForDiscomfort/attention/index

1. Choose a form of discomfort (choose one of the four forms, and get more specific from there)

Visceral— sensory overload (fast-paced flashing lights and colors, visual obstruction, inability to concentrate)

2. Identify a goal that could be reached through this discomfort

Get participants to think about their attention spans and how they are captured and manipulated by external stimuli. Ideally would like to facilitate dialogue surrounding this topic to span more overarching issues regarding our visual landscape (for example the advertising industry, technology’s effects on our mental abilities).

3. Identify a design approach (must be different than Journey #1) that can utilize your chosen form of discomfort.

A web-based experience (the space which is most susceptible to such discomfort).

4. Prototype a “journey” using that approach, toward the goal, through the chosen form of discomfort.

A web-based experience where users are presented with the objective of reading an essay, but are subsequently confronted with increasing sensory distraction inhibiting their ability to finish it (they wouldn’t have read it in its entirety anyway, right?)

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This prototype focuses on testing the following factors:

• User interest/engagement (How far will they get? If not far, why not? Is it boring? Does it get too uncomfortable too quickly?)
• Does the user understand the purpose of the experience?
• Did the user find the experience worthwhile/rewarding? Does it actually facilitate dialogue/thought as per my design goals, or in any other way?

Based on the results for these research points, I’d like to move on to figuring out what contexts the experience(s) should be presented in (how will users stumble upon this?) then build more complex web-based experiences utilizing similar subtle, encroaching a/v annoyances.