removing the distraction of having to change page. Unlimited content
is now common on most social media feeds; since 2015, YouTube
has automatically played another video after the current one ends.
Social media design is also centred on sharing; it’s difficult for us to
post content without seeing what others are up to.
Although not all features were originally intended to be so
addictive, people are increasingly aware of how apps can influence
their behaviour.[90] Even developers have become cautious of their
own inventions. Justin Rosenstein and Leah Pearlman were part of
the team that introduced Facebook’s ‘like’ button. In recent years,
both have reportedly tried to escape the allure of notifications.
Rosenstein had his assistant put parental controls on his phone;
Pearlman, who later became an illustrator, hired a social media
manager to look after her Facebook page.[91]
As well as encouraging interactions, design can also hinder them.
WeChat, China’s vastly popular social media app, had over a billion
active users in 2019. The app brings together a wide range of
services: users can shop, pay bills and book travel, as well as
sending messages to each other. People can also share ‘Moments’
(i.e. images or media) with their friends, much like the Facebook
News Feed. Unlike Facebook, however, WeChat users can only ever
see their friends’ comments on posts.[92] This means that if you have
two friends who aren’t friends with each other, they can’t see
everything that’s been said. This changes the nature of interactions.
‘It prevents what I would describe as conversation from emerging,’
Dean Eckles said. ‘Anybody who posts anything as a comment
knows that it’s possible that it will be taken totally out of context,
because others may see only their comment and not what happened
previously in that thread.’ Facebook and Twitter have widely shared
posts with thousands of public comments below. In contrast, attempts
at WeChat discussions inevitably look fragmented or confused, which
deters users from trying.
Chinese social media discourages collective action in several
ways, including deliberate barriers created by government
censorship. A few years ago, political scientist Margaret Roberts and
her colleagues tried to reconstruct the process of Chinese