adriau

This week, a tale of two Shawns/Seans, their impossible dream, and the file sharing service that lived fast, died young, and helped create the internet as we know it. Plus, Metallica.

I wanted to explore the malicious, confusing, and deceitful things that occur after signing up for digital services, as well as how design can nudge us to forget about a free trial or accidentally sign up for things that we didn’t intend to.

Dark patterns are often most egregious with subscriptions and free trials, especially when attempting to cancel, so I focused on those.

In this conversation, artist and writer Jenny Odell points beyond the domination of clock time toward ways of being that are more in tune with the rhythms and patterns of the Earth.

Visual technique library.

AI generated mashup of Star Wars and Wes Anderson movies.

Though it makes me feel like a grandmother on her deathbed to admit it, I remember the days when the internet was vast, when there seemed to be more places to go than anyone could ever visit and infinite things to read. What you saw was not determined by some highly protected coded algorithm that lives somewhere in the cloud. You could just go out and find it.

Ongoing loneliness, which can be accompanied by sadness, boredom or a sense of emptiness, can interfere with daily life. At times, loneliness may dampen the motivation to engage in day-to-day activities and even contribute to a withdrawal from others…

…Learning ways to cope with loneliness, then, might help with managing stress and maintaining overall wellness.