Wow. That was not a pleasant experience.

I almost gave up at the first screen when I got locked out and couldn’t close the “Hurry up. Time is ticking!” screen. Everything in this game seems to be against my intuition and the opposite of user-friendly. The buttons are not what I expect it to be. The wordings are twisted so it requires me to read it a second time. The placeholder in fill-in-the-form requires manual deletion. The scroll bar for the age is impossible to calibrate. The instructions for the picture selection are vague and the bottom row does not have checkboxes for me to click. And so many more frustrating features. This design seems almost malicious in a way that I would’ve gotten angry and left the site if it wasn’t for this assignment.

Despite its poor design, it is effective at keeping me on the website longer than it would’ve if it wasn’t all twisted. In the current attention economy where our phones, computers, smart watches, TV, etc. are all competing for my attention – the stakes are higher and people who design these technologies/features/apps know how our brain works. For example, the language learning app or fitness app on the phone rewards if you keep up streaks. It “punishes” by resetting to zero if you miss or skip a day. Instagram automatically inserts suggested content into my feed based on my search history and interaction. I remember watching The Social Dilemma years ago and being creeped out at how much detail and information is being tracked by social media. The number of seconds I stare at content or how fast I respond to someone all gets put into the computer configuring who I am and what will trigger me to check the app. If such demographic data is put into the wrong hands, it can be used for dangerous activities such as targeted political agendas or election campaigns where a specific stream of information is shown to the user. Compared to posters or propaganda people would post on the streets back in the day, we carry our advertisement screen with us all day and answer every time it beeps or dings, which makes it even more dangerous. I don’t know if there is any data yet but the way we interact with technology will have an impact on our brain and our attention span.