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I read this essay by left_adjoint today, and it made me think about the differences between convenient and thoughtful technology.
"The slow web" is an almost decade old idea. There clearly is a difference between the fast-paced social media of Twitter and Facebook, and the slower world of blogs and small sites. That difference has had many names over the years. Big and fast, small and slow.
Yet it often seems that there is very little discussion on why people like the fast web. Of course, it's easy to say that it's addictive and it manipulates its users. I'm not saying it is not true, but it is definitely not the full picture.
I think it's more useful to talk about the problems with convenient technology. What Twitter ultimately does, is make it easier, more convenient, to write your thoughts and share others' thoughts. And people like it, and it's good in abstract. But because it is easier, there is also less intention, less thought behind the action. This is what causes so much misunderstanding and spreading of misinformation on the internet.
I think this is what the problem with retweets is: if it's simply a button, pressing it requires almost no effort. Writing a tweet that explains the context of sharing it takes significantly more effort.
On the other end of the spectrum is the slow web, or the thoughtful web. It's not exactly *harder* to post a blog post, but it certainly requires more intention. There are still bad ideas, but the medium is fundamentally more thoughtful.
Of course, we humans prefer ease. And that's why the fast internet always seems to win: people want to communicate, and they want to do it with the least effort possible.
If the reason the slow web is "better" is that it's less convenient, is there any sense to try to make it more convenient? Should we ceate mediums that are as inconvenient as possible? That seems self-defeating, but also slightly elitist. But still, it's good that at least there exist some mediums where there is some kind of requirement of intention.
In any case, platforms like Twitter definitely should think more about what kind of actions they want to make convenient, and what actions should have more intention behind them.
As a side note, I feel like twitter-inspired platforms such as Mastodon have kind of fallen into the trap of mirroring Twitter in these regards. Convenience is important for getting users, but do non-commercial projects actually need to care about that? On the other hand, getting people to use more ethical platforms is also a plus. It's not an easy question.
Maybe I just wish people thought about this distinction more. That there are downsides to sharing to the whole word every single thought as soon as they form. And that if you are after more thoughtful discussion, it might not be a good idea to use the most convenient platform possible.
It's more of a social problem than technological one, as usual.