Friction and not being touched Highlight

In tech circles friction is seen as bad, everything needs to be frictionless. Every interaction with anything needs to be smooth and uninterrupted. Which usually means the path to you parting with your money/attention needs to be as seamless as possible. It’s the logic of casinos: Don’t let gamblers see natural light or a clock so nothing disturbs the efficient process of moving money from a bunch of people to the casino owner.

But it’s not only nefarious reasons that make people design frictionlessness: Errorless learning for example wants to remove the friction that making a mistake and being corrected creates in the hope of generating better outcomes. (It’s not a coincidence though, that specifically B. F. Skinner – known for inventing “Skinner Boxes” which is the theory that a lot of modern game and app design is based on to keep people hooked – is a big intellectual force in that space.) Friction can be annoying. Don’t we all just want things to work?

Sure. But friction is not just “things not working properly”, it can also be read as being touched. Just as crowded spaces create friction by other people being in my way while moving, a process with friction makes me feel other people’s work, their point of view and how it differs from mine, makes me feel their needs and wants. Friction is part of what being in, being part of society is.