The pur­suit of the ful­ly seam­less expe­ri­ence makes it hard­er to engage thought­ful­ly with our sur­round­ing environment.

Inno­va­tion has been pros­e­cut­ing a war on fric­tion. By fric­tion, we mean any amount of sur­plus effort need­ed to accom­plish a giv­en task. To under­stand the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of this, we can look to a depic­tion of a world of zero fric­tion, as seen in the 2008 film WALL‑E. After aban­don­ing Earth fol­low­ing an envi­ron­men­tal col­lapse, human civ­i­liza­tion goes on to inhab­it gigan­tic, ful­ly-auto­mat­ed space­ships. We quick­ly see that inac­tiv­i­ty has made every­body mor­bid­ly obese. The sur­viv­ing humans spend their days being whisked from place to place on hov­er­ing chairs, being attend­ed to by machines, while a per­son­al pro­jec­tion screen per­pet­u­al­ly absorbs their atten­tion. Although these inhab­i­tants are pre­sent­ed as being in good spir­its, in real­i­ty, a lack of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty is well known to be dam­ag­ing to both phys­i­cal and men­tal well­be­ing. There is an issue at the heart of the war on fric­tion, revealed by the real­i­ties of the idea tak­en to its extreme. Some­times we need friction.

The impor­tance of fric­tion can be eas­i­ly seen in dig­i­tal ser­vices and mar­ket­places. The few­er inputs required of a user to per­form a cer­tain task, the more like­ly they are to per­form that task. In the con­text of online shop­ping, some­thing like “one click order­ing” speeds them on their way to mak­ing a pur­chase with­out an addi­tion­al moment for con­sid­er­a­tion. On social media, design fea­tures like infi­nite scrolling and auto­play­ing videos, ensure a steady stream of con­tent to main­tain user engage­ment. In these exam­ples, the lack of fric­tion is good for the pro­duc­er, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly in the best inter­ests of the consumer.

There are oth­er aspects of life in which the total absence of fric­tion may not be appro­pri­ate. Take the act of cook­ing. Busy lifestyles have led to the cre­ation of many labor and time-sav­ing gad­gets. On a pure­ly mech­a­nis­tic lev­el, the act of con­sum­ing nutri­ents can be accom­plished with prac­ti­cal­ly no effort at all. One sim­ply needs to ingest one of the many mar­ket­ed pre-pack­aged meal solu­tions. But, despite the ease of such a prod­uct, peo­ple still choose to com­mit their time and atten­tion to prepar­ing labor-inten­sive meals. There is a sat­is­fac­tion derived from the act, and the val­ue of the meal itself becomes greater as a result of the work that went into it. The meal may even be made col­lec­tive­ly, and it is cer­tain­ly bet­ter enjoyed togeth­er. This pri­mal rit­u­al of com­mu­nal prepa­ra­tion and eat­ing strength­ens social bonds and relationships.

Inno­va­tion must make sure to pre­serve the right amount of fric­tion for the right rea­sons. In fields like health­care or the automotive/mobility sec­tor, fric­tion must be elim­i­nat­ed as much as pos­si­ble. In places where fric­tion belongs for the pur­pose of rig­or, a bal­ance must be struck between exces­sive dif­fi­cul­ty, and so much ease as to ren­der an action entire­ly thought­less. Fric­tion must be rein­stalled where it has been pushed out by sleek tech­nol­o­gy. It should act as a nec­es­sary buffer on social media, in online shop­ping, and con­sump­tion in gen­er­al, to help us avoid slid­ing into a hyp­not­ic state of auto­mat­ed behav­ior. Respect must be giv­en to the need for self-direct­ed activ­i­ty and exploration.