Personalization might be the Biggest Problem

A recent article in my feed communicated something that I have been thinking pretty well, so I reproduce it here:

…modern maps put everyone at the centre of the world. […] countries put themselves at the centre of world maps. The artefact and its perspective becomes defined by who commissioned or owned it. […] With being the centre of our own worlds, the products we buy are increasingly more personal or tailored to us. We also live in our own increasingly joined-up service ecosystems. AI now promises us super-assistants to make us more productive, enhancing our personal experience. It’s all a promise of productivity–with us at the very centre. […] **this feels increasingly like a world of hyper-individualism where personal interests, empowerment and abilities, are prioritised over community and collective well-being.** (emphasis mine)

This captures my feeling pretty well. Many others have talked about how social algorithms have created individual bubbles that collect people around similar viewports, repeating the same and digging the hole deeper each time — often into a new reality devoid of facts and common sense. But the design industry bears some blame. We have long thought it was a worthwhile goal to chase individuality. I think we are finding out just how wrong we all were.

When Jakob Nielsen advocated for AI-driven, individualistic UX design, I knew we were drinking the wrong Kool-Aid. My personal nightmare is designing a UX system that is different for each person that uses it. How do you test that? How can you help someone troubleshoot it? Is it even UX at that point, or is it something else?

Collective experiences are powerful, and a lack of them — for me at least — has lead to a deep feeling of loneliness. What do I have in common with my neighbors if we are watching different shows on demand, attending movies in our own homes, shopping online more than out in the world, and confined to our own social media bubbles that no longer resemble Venn diagrams? Where is the overlap?

The overlap is what is missing. We no longer see want we have in common but where we are different. Don’t get me wrong, differences are a beautiful thing. We are individuals and that is important. But we are no only individuals. We are individuals in a society of other humans. If we only ever see how we are all different, and if everything else in our lives revolves around us, what does that mean for a civil society? What does that mean for discourse, for conversation, connection, and compromise?

I think we are seeing that it means society ceases to function effectively. Fear and misinformation spread quickly and easily. Distrust between people increases to the point that we don’t even want to engage in a conversation because we know the gap between us is too large and difficult to overcome. It leads to more loneliness and depression, which turns us inward back towards the news and the bubbles of seemingly like-minded people that understand us because they want our attention and devotion. Because they have something they want from us.

Even as I write all of this I know I have fallen victim. While I engage in social media rarely, I can see the same effects elsewhere. It’s difficult to have conversations with people. I fear them making an incorrect assumption about me and how I think about the world, an assumption that leads to an awkward conversation, maybe even an argument, because their worldview is being challenged by me not fitting into it as they thought.

I don’t like it and at the same time, I don’t yet know what to do with it.