Right now, many of the social products we use are shaped by design patterns that prioritize engagement over wellbeing—patterns that can drain our dopamine reserves, heighten anxiety, and play on our emotions through social comparison, leading to chronic stress. They often ignore our values, overstep our boundaries, and stand in the way of us becoming who we truly want to be. But let’s be clear: it’s not the people who are broken. It’s the system. And systems can be redesigned.
Design isn’t dead. It’s just been misplaced1—underutilized at the leadership level where it could do the most good. Even though design-led companies¹ are consistently shown to outperform their peers², design is still too often treated as decoration rather than direction. We’ve ended up here because the designers who deeply care—who advocate for human outcomes over vanity metrics—are often drowned out by louder, profit-first voices.
The future isn’t built by optimizing for attention. It’s built by restoring intention. And we have the tools, the talent, and the responsibility to do better. The creator of the UX field—Don Norman—even makes the claim that the way we design today is wrong4.
Putting Design at the Heart of Startup Culture for Better Human Outcomes
It’s clear how deeply design is embedded in the foundations of successful startups—after all, one of Y Combinator’s core teachings is to “always speak to users”³. That’s second nature to most designers. Listening, understanding, and advocating for people is what we do best. But when design doesn’t have a seat at the top, the values that shape company culture can drift away from empathy and ethics. And without those values embedded early on, it becomes harder to build technology that truly supports human wellbeing.
Design brings a vital perspective: the ability to empathize with those on the other side of the screen, to anticipate harm before it happens, and to shape experiences that uphold dignity and respect. When that perspective is missing from leadership, the cost isn’t just poor usability—it’s broken trust, exploited attention, and lost potential. We’re living the consequences of that imbalance today. But it doesn’t have to stay this way. Giving design a voice at the top isn’t just good ethics—it’s the foundation for building humane, impactful, and future-ready technology.
Reframing Design: More Than Looks, It’s About People and Purpose
Design sits at the intersection of computer science, cognitive science, and human experience—offering a uniquely holistic view of how technology affects people. And yet, it’s still too often reduced to surface-level aesthetics or “making things pretty.” The reality is, solving design problems takes deep creativity, systems thinking, and a strong sense of responsibility. But because creativity can feel hard to quantify, monetize, or manage, it’s often misunderstood—and even seen as a threat to the status quo.
This disconnect leaves many designers struggling to find fulfilling, purpose-driven work. Meanwhile, non-creatives are left without a clear understanding of how design can shape outcomes far beyond visuals. But design is not just about pixels—it’s about people. And the consequences of poor design are real. Some of the most harmful outcomes in tech—from misinformation to mental health crises—stem from design choices that failed to center ethics and empathy.
When Technology Prioritizes Engagement Over Wellbeing, We All Pay the Price.
Many of the most popular social products today are not designed with our wellbeing in mind—they’re engineered for addiction, often borrowing tactics from the gambling industry to hook users into compulsive patterns. We scroll through infinite feeds carefully crafted to maximize engagement, not connection—feeds that often drive us to compare ourselves to impossible standards, contributing to skyrocketing rates of anxiety⁵ and heartbreaking outcomes like the rise in suicide among young girls.
What should be tools for love and connection have become large-scale social experiments that can reward narcissism and desensitize us to real human emotion. Social products designed to inform is now optimized to divide, stoking fear and outrage with misinformation that hijacks our most primal instincts. And perhaps most tragically, platforms that once promised to bring us closer are leaving younger generations feeling lonelier than ever⁶—at a time when loneliness is one of the most serious public health challenges of our age.
These are design choices—and design choices can be changed. We have the opportunity and responsibility to build tools that support mental wellness, deepen human connection, and serve the public good. It’s not just about making better products—it’s about creating a healthier, more compassionate future for everyone.
Gambling disorder highlights the subtle distinction between reward anticipation (dopamine release prior to reward) and reward response (dopamine release after or during reward). My patients with gambling addiction have told me that while playing, a part of them wants to lose. The more they lose, the stronger the urge to continue gambling, and the stronger the rush when they win— a phenomenon described as “loss chasing.” I suspect something similar is going on with social media apps, where the response of others is so capricious and unpredictable that the uncertainty of getting a “like” or some equivalent is as reinforcing as the “like” itself.
Lembke, A. (2021). Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. [online] Dutton Books, p61. Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55723020-dopamine-nation [Accessed 21 Feb. 2022].
We’re entering an era of synthetic selection, where the forces shaping our behavior are no longer biological but digital. Superstimuli like social products, media and video games are engineered to hijack our dopamine systems through variably timed rewards—keeping us hooked, distracted, and disconnected from ourselves. These experiences offer easy escapes from the discomfort and effort required to build a meaningful life. But in doing so, they can dull our sense of purpose and make it harder to engage with the very challenges that help us grow.
When Technology Exploits Our Minds, It Steals What Makes Life Meaningful.
When technology is designed to exploit our cognitive biases and manipulate social status for attention and profit, it creates a world of shallow interactions and hollow rewards. It offers the illusion of achievement while pulling us further from what actually makes life meaningful. A fulfilling life is built through deep, undistracted work and genuine human connection—not constant notifications and algorithmic feedback loops.
And with AI rapidly amplifying these patterns, the stakes are only getting higher. These issues won’t resolve themselves—they will compound unless we act with intention. The truth is, most social products wasn’t built with our wellbeing, values, or boundaries in mind. And while the industry has more than enough resources to make a meaningful difference, its response so far has been largely symbolic—time limits, muted notifications, and screen usage stats aren’t solutions. They’re signals. Signals that something deeper needs to change.
Of the infinite forms communication technology might have taken, why, like TV news, has internet news elevated brevity and novelty over in-depth analysis? Aren’t the events of the world worth more attention? The answer is desire dopamine. A short, slick story stands out from the landscape—it is salient. It delivers a quick hit of dopamine and grabs our attention. Thus we click through a dozen provocative headlines that lead to kitten videos and skip the long essay about healthcare. The healthcare story is more pertinent to our lives, but the work of processing that story is no match for the easy pleasure of those dopamine hits. Control dopamine could push back, but it is invariably overpowered by the flood of whatever is new and shiny, and such things are the currency of the Internet. Where will this lead? Probably not to a renaissance of long-form journalism. As quick-hit stories grow more prevalent in the news environment, they must get shorter and shallower to compete. Where does such a cycle end?
Lieberman, D. (2018). The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity—and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race. [online] BenBella Books, p163. Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38728977-the-molecule-of-more [Accessed 10 Jul. 22].
What we need isn’t just better features—it’s better leadership. Leadership that’s willing to prioritize human flourishing over growth curves. Leadership that holds itself to the same standards it claims to build for others. If tech leaders won’t let their own children use the products they create, that’s not just hypocrisy—it’s a wake-up call.
So where do we begin? The path forward starts by facing the hard truths. Here are eight reasons why embracing greater responsibility in design and technology is essential for creating a healthier, more ethical future.
1. Youth Mental Health Crisis
Social products like Instagram, X, and TikTok are built on powerful algorithms and polished visuals that can quietly shape how we see ourselves and the world. These tools engage deep-rooted human instincts—our need for connection, recognition, and belonging—but often in ways that unintentionally cause harm. The glossy, curated snapshots of “perfect” lives and bodies aren’t just unrealistic; they’re built to capture attention by triggering comparison and self-doubt. And the design choices behind them are deliberate.
Social media can absolutely be a force for good—offering space for creativity, visibility, and connection. Many people, especially those with strong emotional grounding, are able to navigate these platforms in healthy, even empowering ways. But we also have to face a harder truth: for many users, especially vulnerable teenagers, the impact can be deeply damaging. A growing body of research⁷ points to an alarming rise in suicide rates among young people—particularly girls—and that trend is still increasing.
Anxiety, depression, and chronic stress are now common experiences for an entire generation shaped by attention-driven technology. This isn’t a random side effect; it mirrors the rise of platforms that are optimized for engagement and profit, not mental health. And while individuals have found relief through digital breaks and conscious usage, the real opportunity lies in rethinking the systems themselves—so that future tools can truly support human wellbeing from the inside out.
2. Normalization of Mental Disorders
Features like vanity metrics, likes, reactions, ghosting, flawless appearance filters, mob dynamics, and endless autoplay aren’t just accidental quirks of social media—they’re signals of deeper systemic patterns. These patterns can reinforce behaviors and mental states that, over time, normalize things like chronic anxiety, low self-worth, emotional disconnection, and compulsive comparison. The real concern isn’t just the features themselves, but how they manipulate our dopamine systems and social instincts in ways that keep us stuck in loops of short-term gratification.
This isn’t about blaming users—it’s about acknowledging how these designs make it harder to engage with the slower, more meaningful work of life: real connection, self-reflection, purpose, and growth. The constant stream of variable rewards keeps us anxious and on edge, always scrolling, always checking, never quite satisfied. Since the rise of social media, we’ve seen a steady increase in reported anxiety and depression—and the trend continues.
So why do we continue working so hard? One of the big answers, as most people realize, is that we’re stuck in a rat race. Or to put it in the terms we’ve been using throughout the book, we’re locked in a game of competitive signaling. No matter how fast the economy grows, there remains a limited supply of sex and social status—and earning and spending money is still a good way to compete for it. 3 The idea that we use purchases to flaunt our wealth is known as conspicuous consumption. It’s an accusation that we buy things not so much for purely personal enjoyment as for showing off or “keeping up with the Joneses.”
Simler, K. (2017). The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life. [online] Oxford University Press, p169. Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28820444-the-elephant-in-the-brain [Accessed 01 May. 2022].
3. Divisive Polarization
Social products like Facebook and X were originally created to connect us and keep us informed. But over time, they’ve had the opposite effect—fueling division, weakening trust, and often leaving the most vulnerable among us exposed. These digital public squares weren’t built to support healthy discourse or meaningful connection. They were built on business models that rewarded outrage over empathy, and efficiency over care—reflecting systemic failures, not individual intentions.
At the heart of this lies the algorithmic feed: a system optimized not for truth, wellbeing, or connection, but for engagement8. These feeds—sometimes even steered manually by internal teams and heavily influenced by bots—are designed to capture attention at all costs. They exploit our cognitive biases and our innate craving for novelty, pulling us toward the loudest, most extreme voices. The more shocking the content, the more clicks. And the more clicks, the more profit.
The technology isn’t inherently broken. It’s the design choices and the incentives behind them that need to change. As designers, we have the opportunity—and the responsibility—to create systems that respect boundaries, support mental health, and foster genuine connection, especially with the younger generation9.
4. Loneliness Epidemic
Over time, our generations have grown increasingly distant from one another. Generation Z, in particular, has experienced a unique shift—being the first to grow up immersed in social media from adolescence onward. Yet everything we know about wellbeing and healthy living highlights the importance of meaningful, in-person connection. Physical touch, shared presence, and genuine relationships remain essential.
But many of the tools we’ve built have unintentionally replaced these vital human experiences with surface-level, dopamine-driven interactions. Highlight reels—carefully curated and rehearsed—often foster comparison and envy, creating a false sense of connection that can leave people feeling more isolated than ever.
This isn’t a failure of individuals—it’s a failure of the systems we’ve designed. Loneliness¹⁰ has become one of the most significant public health challenges of our time. If we don’t rethink the digital environments we create, we risk deepening that sense of fragmentation.
We were shaped by individual selection to be selfish creatures who struggle for resources, pleasure, and prestige, and we were shaped by group selection to be hive creatures who long to lose ourselves in something larger. We are social creatures who need love and attachments, and we are industrious creatures with needs for effectance, able to enter a state of vital engagement with our work. We are the rider and we are the elephant, and our mental health depends on the two working together, each drawing on the others’ strengths. I don’t believe there is an inspiring answer to the question, “What is the purpose of life?” Yet by drawing on ancient wisdom and modern science, we can find compelling answers to the question of purpose within life. The final version of the happiness hypothesis is that happiness comes from between. Happiness is not something that you can find, acquire, or achieve directly. You have to get the conditions right and then wait. Some of those conditions are within you, such as coherence among the parts and levels of your personality. Other conditions require relationships to things beyond you: Just as plants need sun, water, and good soil to thrive, people need love, work, and a connection to something larger. It is worth striving to get the right relationships between yourself and others, between yourself and your work, and between yourself and something larger than yourself. If you get these relationships right, a sense of purpose and meaning will emerge.
Haidt, J. (2006). The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. [online] Basic Books, p238. Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/96884.The_Happiness_Hypothesis [Accessed 29 Dec. 2022].
5. Abdundance of Superstimuli
What goes up must come down—and our dopamine system is no exception. Think of it like a finely tuned instrument, incredibly sensitive to input. When we flood it with stimulation, the initial high is often followed by an emotional dip. Over time, repeated exposure to intense rewards—like social media, sensational news, gaming, sugar, or porn—can shift our baseline. We begin to need more just to feel normal. It’s not that people are broken. It’s that the system is designed this way. And unfortunately, it can drain our motivation, numbing our sense of purpose and pulling us away from empathy, joy, and meaningful connection.
Right now, there are no guardrails. No clear labels, no thoughtful limits, and very little alignment with what most of us actually value. The dopamine system is wired to seek more—but when what it finds is engineered superstimuli, it’s easy to get caught in a loop of craving without satisfaction. We’re seeing the consequences: rising anxiety, declining well-being, and a collective drift toward apathy.
We’ve all experienced craving in the aftermath of pleasure. Whether it’s reaching for a second potato chip or clicking the link for another round of video games, it’s natural to want to re-create those good feelings or try not to let them fade away. The simple solution is to keep eating, or playing, or watching, or reading. But there’s a problem with that. With repeated exposure to the same or similar pleasure stimulus, the initial deviation to the side of pleasure gets weaker and shorter and the after-response to the side of pain gets stronger and longer, a process scientists cal neuroadaptation. That is, with repetition, our gremlins get bigger, faster, and more numerous, and we need more of our drug of choice to getthe same effect.
Lembke, A. (2021). Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. [online] Dutton Books, p53. Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55723020-dopamine-nation [Accessed 21 Feb. 2022].
6. Biase Exploitation
Design is a powerful force. It shapes how people think, feel, and act, often by tapping into mental shortcuts our brains rely on every day. These shortcuts can help people make quick decisions when used with care. When they work in our favor, we call them heuristics. When they work against us, they become biases that can lead to poor decisions or unintended outcomes.¹¹ The difference between helping and harming often lies in the intention behind the design—and too often, we see these same mechanisms used to amplify anxiety, trigger fear of missing out, or manipulate commitment through loss aversion and priming.¹²
As designers, we aren’t always trained in psychology or behavioral science—but we should be. Understanding how people naturally respond to the world, how our biology and psychology influence behavior, is essential to creating tools that truly serve human well-being. Yet, this kind of foundational knowledge is still missing from much of today’s design education.
Illusive design patterns still show up everywhere, from scrappy startups to large design-led organizations. It’s not because designers don’t care, it’s because the systems we work within often reward short-term gains over long-term trust. Even the usability heuristics we’ve leaned on for decades, like those outlined by Don Norman, are showing their age and need rethinking.
But this is also where the opportunity lies. By building with ethics at the core and centering human flourishing, we can design tools that support—not exploit—people’s health and wellness. The responsibility is big, but so is the potential for impact.
“At every single stage [of processing information]-from its biased arrival, to its biased encoding, to organizing it around false logic, to misremembering and then misrepresenting it to others-the mind continually acts to distort information flow in favor of the usual goal of appearing better than one really is.” Emily Pronin calls it the introspection illusion, the fact that we don’t know our own minds nearly as wellas we pretend to. For the price of a little self-deception, we get to have our cake and eat it too: act in our own best interests without having to reveal ourselves as the self-interested schemers we often are.
Simler, K. (2017). The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life. [online] Oxford University Press, p8. Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28820444-the-elephant-in-the-brain [Accessed 01 May. 2022].
7. Maximal Attention Economy
Capitalism has driven incredible innovation and opportunity—but it’s also created unintended side effects that are quietly fraying the fabric of our society. In today’s system, companies often feel pressured to prioritize growth above all else, simply to survive. This pressure can attract high-stakes decision makers, and research shows a link between executive leadership and narcissistic traits such as emotional detachment or apathy¹³. In this environment, attention has become a new form of currency—one fiercely competed for by overstimulating content designed to hijack our focus.
In the startup world, metrics like Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) are used to measure loyalty, often equating engagement with success. But time is one of our most valuable human resources. Algorithms optimized for maximum engagement don’t always serve us—they can subtly limit our potential by exploiting our natural curiosity and drive for novelty, without regard for the emotional toll.
Major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X have struggled to evolve in ways that truly respect the user. Lacking meaningful innovation, they often fill their interfaces with ads after nearly every post—prioritizing monetization over experience. Ironically, they then offer a paid version to remove the very pain they introduced.
8. Superficial Relationships
Technology is reshaping how we think and feel—especially for younger generations who’ve grown up with it from a young age. For 99% of our existence, we’ve thrived in tight-knit communities, living in harmony with our environment and one another. But today, we’re navigating systems that often work against our natural rhythms. These tools—while powerful—are too often designed to exploit our cognitive shortcuts rather than support our well-being.
We know from decades of science that meaning comes from connection, time in nature, and a sense of belonging. But instead, many of today’s digital experiences are nudging us toward loneliness, status games, and dopamine burnout. When our nervous systems are overstimulated, even the quiet beauty of autumn leaves can feel dull.
As best we can tell, from the earliest times, more than a million years ago, humans lived in small, intimate communities, most of whose members were kin. The Cognitive Revolution and the Agricultural Revolution did not change that. They glued together families and communities to create tribes, cities, kingdoms and empires, but families and communities remained the basic building blocks of all human societies. The Industrial Revolution, on the other hand, managed within little more than two centuries to break these building blocks into atoms. Most of the traditiona functions of families and communities were handed over to states and markets.
Harari, Y. (2011). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. [online] Vintage, p461. Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23692271-sapiens [Accessed 09 Jan. 2022].
Rethinking Power, Ethics, and Culture in the Age of AI
The real issue isn’t the people—it’s the system we’ve built around them. A lack of empowered design leadership, outdated education models, hubristic marketing, leadership that prioritizes profits over people, and the ease of entering tech without accountability have all contributed to a world of tools that too often lack compassion for the very people they’re meant to serve. As designers, especially now in the age of AI, we urgently need a renewed set of design ethics—ones that actively protect those most vulnerable to the harms of the attention economy, unintended social consequences, low UX maturity in institutions, sluggish policy change, algorithmic bias, and company cultures shaped without a deep understanding of human behavior.
The truth is, many of these issues are well known within the tech world. With their vast resources and research capabilities, these companies aren’t blind to the damage. But systemic forces—conformity bias, VC pressure, loss aversion, and the belief that money solves all problems—keep them stuck. Few are willing to be the first to take a stand for fear of financial loss, and without bold leadership, meaningful cultural change feels out of reach. But culture can shift—because culture starts at the top. When leaders model inclusive, ethical, people-first behavior, that ripple spreads. When they don’t, the cycle of harm continues. And yet, the very thing that sustains toxic systems—our human tendency to mirror others—can also be what transforms them. Empathy, after all, is contagious.
Designing a Future We Deserve
Waiting for government regulations alone won’t be enough. These are design challenges still left unsolved, and even the creators of persuasive tech don’t yet have all the answers14. The true solution lies in reimagining how company cultures are built from the ground up—rooted in new design ethics that embrace compassionate awareness of our shared human values, boundaries, and vulnerabilities.
I’ve encountered these illusive design patterns firsthand, and I know many others share these concerns. But I’m not content to stand by. I want you to join me on a journey to lead by example—building a movement that helps all of us recognize and move beyond these deceptive designs to become the best versions of ourselves. Together, we can create a future driven by altruism and a genuine desire to uplift others while fulfilling our own potential. These challenges are complex, but the people deserve nothing less than our best efforts.
To learn more about how we’re redesigning tools for clearer thinking, deeper connection, and better habits, visit circlo.com. Build a healthier inner world with science-based tools that help you reframe, reflect, and grow.
References
- Rae, J. (2014). Design Can Drive Exceptional Returns for Shareholders. [online] Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/2014/04/design-can-drive-exceptional-returns-for-shareholders.
- www.mckinsey.com. (n.d.). The business value of design | McKinsey. [online] Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-design/our-insights/the-business-value-of-design.
- YC Startup Library. (n.d.). How to Talk to Users : YC Startup Library | Y Combinator. [online] Available at: https://www.ycombinator.com/library/6g-how-to-talk-to-users.
- www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Don Norman Says the Way We Design Today is Wrong! [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMEzKQpTosYMEzKQpTosY.
- Anon, (n.d.). Social Media | Jonathan Haidt. [online] Available at: https://jonathanhaidt.com/social-media/ [Accessed 5 Mar. 2023].
- Lieberman, D. (2018). The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity—and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race. [online] BenBella Books, p201. Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38728977-the-molecule-of-more [Accessed 10 Jul. 22].
- Google Docs. (n.d.). Social Media Use and Mental Health: A Review. [online] Available at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w-HOfseF2wF9YIpXwUUtP65-olnkPyWcgF5BiAtBEy0/
- Chen, A. (2021). The Cold Start Problem. [online] Harper Business, p . Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55338968-the-cold-start-problem [Accessed 06 Dec. 2022].
- www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Live: Facebook Whistleblower Testifies at Senate Hearing | NBC News. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IhWeVHxdXg&t=3974s [Accessed 22 May 2023].
- Hunt, M.G., Marx, R., Lipson, C. and Young, J. (2018). No More FOMO: Limiting Social Media Decreases Loneliness and Depression. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, [online] 37(10), pp.751–768. doi:https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2018.37.10.751.
- Simler, K. (2017). The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life. [online] Oxford University Press, p8. Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28820444-the-elephant-in-the-brain [Accessed 01 May. 2022].
- Chen, A. (2021). The Cold Start Problem. [online] Harper Business, p . Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55338968-the-cold-start-problem [Accessed 06 Dec. 2022].
- Zakolyukina, A., Tayan, B., O’Reilly, C. and Larcker, D. (2021). Are Narcissistic CEOs All That Bad? [online] The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance. Available at: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2021/10/25/are-narcissistic-ceos-all-that-bad/.
- www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder and CEO Social Capital, on Money as an Instrument of Change. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMotykw0SIk&t=1134s [Accessed 5 Mar. 2023].
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