Ben Clarke

But the thing that rubs up against that slightly is for many of these big social media organizations or media organizations like the Guardian, they want engagement, right?

And if people are slowed down, there's a risk that they lose people to their sites.

I think

We have to think, what do we really want?

And I would assume, like the conversation we're having now, and like you've expressed, there are a lot of people out there which would actually rather have a productive conversation and have moments for pause, right?

That's a small cost to pay, maybe.

Yeah, I think there's nothing in them which is inherently either good or either bad.

They're just another means for us to communicate, right?

So there's nothing that's per se better or worse than, say, having a face-to-face conversation.

It's really all down to how we design them.

So if we design them in a way that means we put the emphasis on reflection and we encourage people actually to spend more time there, but not only saying the worst stuff, right, but actually contemplating what it is that they're doing,

We could design slow tech.

There's lots of slow food movements.

We could easily have slow tech in this way, but we do have more democratic debates.

So I think there's nothing negative in having online discussions.

They could have that promise.

Of course, that promise hasn't really played out since this early internet optimism, but it could be that way if we decide to design our online spaces that way.