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.
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