communicative friction

A generation that's always online is always exhausted.



Our monkey brains struggle to filter good information from bad, to decide which notifications to tap on and which to swipe away. That's why software companies dedicate tens of millions to design seamless user experiences that make human-computer interaction as easy as possible. You could be lying in bed half-asleep at 2 AM, and Netflix auto-play will take you to the next episode without requiring the energy of a single click.



But social media is a tougher problem. Unlike your TikTok feed or the latest season of Love Island, your real-life friends won't feed you an endless stream of addictive content to consume. And unlike offline hangouts, it's far harder to just vibe, enjoying co-presence without feeling pressure to speak. Instead, socializing online is inherently participatory, and thus inherently effortful.



For a long time, computer-mediated communication took one of a few forms: instant messaging, feed-style posting, or one-to-one voice and video calls. But as shelter-in-place orders leave Americans clamoring for social interaction, social media innovations have swelled to fill the gap. How might we expand the possibilities for digital interaction to match the infinite ways we've learned to engage in-person?



Many social network companies are betting on the allure of the now.



These companies are predicting that what people miss more than ever is real-time interaction. Rather than tweeting into the void or seeking anonymous advice, people want intimacy and emotional connection. They want the social high of a party or the comfortable silence of lounging around with a partner.



For example, enterprise video call software Zoom jumped from relative obscurity to a household name: it became an early winner when schools, offices, and even parties moved online, but is taking its toll as users report "Zoom fatigue" from back-to-back meetings. Preparing for competition, both Facebook's Messenger Rooms and Discord's Go Live streaming service now host large group video calls for up to 50 users. Houseparty and Squad offer their majority-teen user base ways to screen online events side-by-side with friends; meanwhile, the tech elite have flocked to Clubhouse, an invite-only app that features public audio chatrooms that users can pop in and out of at will.





However, as Zoom fatigue shows us, synchronous communication over voice or video doesn't guarantee a natural and effortless experience. Socializing online is a totally different beast, and subtle differences in a platform's affordances make a big impact on how often users flock to it and for what reasons. To describe those effects, I propose a theory of communicative friction for social media.



Communicative friction describes the aggregate effect of many tiny barriers to self-expression on a social platform.



For example, communicative friction is the moment of hesitation before sending a message or the number of times a user edits a post before hitting "Submit." For live video and voice chat, communicative friction appears before a person even opens an app—it's the activation energy required to schedule or join a call in the first place.



Communicative friction can result from product design, social norms, and the shape of a user's social network. Here are a few key components:



• Breadth of audience: How public is the network? Am I engaging with weak or strong ties? How high-stakes are these connections? Is there a risk of context collapse?
• Permanence of communication: Will what I say and do leave a trace? Can other people record or screenshot my behavior? Are these records easily searchable weeks, months, or years later?
• Richness of media: Is communication text, voice, or video-based? Can people monitor my facial expressions and tone of voice? Will I have to put on pants? Can I multitask?
• Expectation of formality: Will I have to self-censor? Is everyone using correct grammar and complete sentences? How much will I have to polish my 'true, natural self' in order to fit in?
• Expected length and intensity of engagement: Can I drop in and out of this interaction at will? Do I need to block out time on my calendar? Do I need to be attentive and ready to speak 100% of the time?
• Synchronicity of communication: Can I edit my message before sending it? How long can I wait before responding?



For example, a video call with close friends may not require much friction in terms of crafting each sentence before speaking. But it does require substantial friction in the logistics to schedule the call and then the preparation for video, such as finding a clean, quiet space and changing out of pajamas. Additionally, participants often carve a block out of their schedule to join, expecting that the conversation could be long.



On the other hand, the communicative friction for texting is relatively low. Text conversations are private, reducing concerns about context collapse, and everyone expects informal language. Furthermore, unlike a group video call, texting is slightly asynchronous and does not carry the obligation of sustained engagement. One can hesitate to answer a tricky question or easily switch between a text conversation and other tasks without feeling rude. However, the capacity to screenshot messages creates some friction—and an implicit expectation of trust between conversational partners.





But communicative friction isn't a bad thing.

Creating friction can lead to purposeful engagements rather than dispassionate ones, or thought-out messages instead of impulsive reactions. For instance, adding friction incentivizes higher-effort communication. A political discussion forum might use friction to increase attention to detail and discourage misinformation. In the context of email, a friend who switched from Gmail to the Superhuman client noted that the Superhuman's super fast, chat-style UI made him far speedier at sending emails from his phone, but also increased the likelihood of double/triple-emails, making typos, and accidentally archiving important emails.



Similarly, a community might require new members to fill out a profile or application before posting. This first creates a selection effect for members, assuming that users who are willing to apply are also more likely to participate. Furthermore, a barrier to entry applies the psychology of cognitive dissonance to promote continued participation. People who expend substantial energy joining a community often increase their enjoyment in order to feel like the initial effort was "worth it." While this principle usually explains hazing in fraternities, it's even more important to online groups that can feel distant and decentralized without strong onboarding processes.



Therefore, designing vibrant social experiences requires deciding when and how to add friction to the user journey: which behaviors should feel effortless, and which should be filtered. Do you want the weightiness of LinkedIn, where every comment is visible to a recruiter's watchful eye? The exclusivity of Superhuman, with its hour-long onboarding? Or the hi-fi experience of a TikTok profile, a living showcase of your face, voice, and personality? These decisions will shape the who, what, when, where, and why for your platform.





TL;DR: Friction increases the energy required to engage. Therefore, less friction means users will express themselves more freely and at a higher quantity. More friction means fewer messages and more editing or censorship between thinking and sending a message.



How might the idea of communicative friction expose untapped opportunities in social media?



There are two main axes of friction that encapsulate many smaller issues.



The first is the axis of ephemerality to permanence. Does one's communication leave a trace? How long does a message stay on the platform, and is it easy to search for previous messages? More permanent mediums encourage more intentionally curated messages, where users are conscious of how their performance contributes to a coherent online identity tied to their account. Meanwhile, more ephemeral platforms may have higher levels of real-time engagement. Users self-censor less when they aren't worried about getting 'canceled', i.e. consistency and coherency between their current and past selves.



The second is the axis of privacy to visibility. How large is the group one is engaging with? Does it include friends, acquaintances, or strangers? How revealing is one's identity? Visibility includes components such as the size of a user's network, how much a medium exposes the self (text/voice/video), and whether messages are easily shared outside of one's network. As one might expect, self-disclosures are more deep and intimate in private settings with controlled audiences, and less so in public settings. In fact, intimate self-disclosure—the ability to discuss "important matters" with others—is a key indicator in research on levels of social support in a community.



If I were to map the current social media landscape according to these two axes, it might look something like this (yes, graphic design is my passion). For comparison, I've plotted the largest social media platforms as well as a few IRL counterparts: a dinner party, a house party, an office, and a conference. The bottom left are the communication forms with least friction, and the top right are those with the most friction.





If I throw in a few of the newer, niche-r apps (Discord, Houseparty, and Clubhouse) you might get this. Notice how they cluster around the bottom middle of the graph—not too far from their IRL counterparts.







By grouping platforms together by their level of friction, I've identified four distinct "user groups" and "interaction modes."





Purple = ZOOMERS: lowest friction, small friend groups, low outside visibility, high authenticity

Young people are enticed by low friction. Think about high school—it's just you and your crew hanging out whenever you can, saying whatever you want, without any curation or care. No one wants to schedule their social activities or be forced to follow contrived professional norms. These platforms are perfect for the casual messages you can send while watching TV or whispering embarrassing confessions you don't want repeated or remembered.

Examples: Snapchat, Instagram Stories, FaceTime calls



Pink = NORMIES: medium friction, high ability to tailor messages for specific audiences/goals

This is where most of the 'adult world' lives. A limited audience means that you have the ability to edit messages for a particular person, context, or goal. There aren't many parties involved, so there's no need to plan. But at the same time, permanence means accountability, which means friction. You'll pay more attention to things like grammar, truthfulness, or whether a message is important enough to warrant a mark on our permanent self.

Examples: Email, Slack, Facebook post



Blue = BLUE CHECKS: highest friction, requires planning/strategy, large reputational consequences

The blue zone requires the highest communicative friction. It's effectively a broadcast: where you have a message to tell the world that you want to establish as part of your reputation and identity. That's a huge consequence which means the social interaction has to be planned and strategized for you to look your best. Most normal people aren't too interested—it's the domain of celebrities, politicians, influencers, and others who "network" for a living.

Examples: YouTube Live, podcast, public Twitter account



Green = MIXERS: high friction to join, low friction to engage, familiar and new faces, in-the-moment engagement

The green zone, like the pink, is a medium friction space. The semi-public platform creates a barrier to entry: either a formal membership/admission process, or the emotional activation energy required to get in the mood to meet new people. As a result, this space allows engagement with a more diverse group than the privacy of the purple—you can chat with both friends and strangers, some of who you'll forget and some who you'll see again. And because these conversations don't last, engaging doesn't require the weightiness of editing one's expressions to fit a permanent identity. Instead, ephemerality chills out the ambience, allowing you to experiment with self-expression. Either way, the stakes are low: disclosures aren't too personal, and no one's taking notes. This is the digital equivalent of a house party.

Examples: TBD—Discord? Clubhouse?



We want to join collectives that are lively, unserious, and fleeting.

Ultimately, The Next Big Thing doesn't have to bring friction down to zero. A space for mixing brings the energy of a crowd without the scrutiny of a news feed; the ability to make friends in the moment without being tied to a profile.



The green zone is also the digital experience that most closely matches how people hang out IRL. In face-to-face environments, we're not jumping in and out of different chats every few minutes, nor are we plagued by the worry that the world is watching. If it's worth the extra effort to get dressed up for a dinner party or drive an hour to the beach, the same should be true for online events. Instead of spending each day spreading attention across thirty low-effort social interactions (a Snap streak here, a Twitter reply there), it's time to prioritize quality over quantity. The desire to engage with others should be intentional, but each word you speak should not.



Yet this green space remains the most sparse, with some new and growing startups but no established players. With Discord grounded in the gaming community, Houseparty among teens, and Clubhouse limited to coastal techies and a couple token celebrities, there's a huge opportunity for whichever product can expand its core user base first. But first, social media companies must convince Internet oldies to seek new communities, put away the text editor, and embrace the now. (jun 23, 2020)