What unifies these experiments is that they encourage deliberation. Why am I buying this? Why am I reporting this “suspicious” incident? Friction engineering ought to be taught in computer-science and design schools everywhere.
I think I hurt my neck nodding at this.
Most of the time coders labor to increase our throughput by reducing friction. Speed often improves life. But the recent techlash has been driven in a fundamental way by the grim side effects of this acceleration. Facebook’s Newsfeed made it frictionlessly easy to spread misinformation; Twitter let trolls engage in coordinated harassment campaigns; Amazon enticed me to buy crap I manifestly don’t need and is helping to denude towns of local businesses.