We've left the "social" era and have entered the era of interruptions. All the innovation this decade is in interruptions no longer human-interconnections.
My smart watch for example post dates the social era so it has only minimal social features, but its deep in the interruption zone and spams me mercilessly until I block apps and if I block enough apps I may as well have a cheap dumb watch.
Another way to look at it is we no longer have 100 people shallowly liking us, we now focus on 100 apps shallowly claiming our attention is vital because we are important and we must be interrupted now.
Some of this is probably cultural backlash against automation and bureaucracy and general economic decline. If more people than ever are in fact not useful or important at all, then a communication style focused primarily around telling people they're important, is going to be very popular.
Under that analysis Slack is a post-social communications media, and it constantly rewarding you with endless micro doses of "your attention is valuable" is not a bug, its the whole philosophy of its existence as an app. You can see why curmudgeons see Slack as something negative, like the intrusion of participation trophy culture, because thats pretty much what it is.
The purpose of Slack is to constantly interrupt you with a narrative that you're important. There are incidental side effects that make it semi-useful. Companies spend a lot of money on "make employees feel special" and Slack is merely a modern example of the genre.
This philosophical analysis of Slack is probably extendible past Slack into startups. Don't try to market something as interconnectedness, not in 2017. Try to sell something that symbolically, or whatever, tells people they're important.
My smart watch for example post dates the social era so it has only minimal social features, but its deep in the interruption zone and spams me mercilessly until I block apps and if I block enough apps I may as well have a cheap dumb watch.
Another way to look at it is we no longer have 100 people shallowly liking us, we now focus on 100 apps shallowly claiming our attention is vital because we are important and we must be interrupted now.
Some of this is probably cultural backlash against automation and bureaucracy and general economic decline. If more people than ever are in fact not useful or important at all, then a communication style focused primarily around telling people they're important, is going to be very popular.
Under that analysis Slack is a post-social communications media, and it constantly rewarding you with endless micro doses of "your attention is valuable" is not a bug, its the whole philosophy of its existence as an app. You can see why curmudgeons see Slack as something negative, like the intrusion of participation trophy culture, because thats pretty much what it is.
The purpose of Slack is to constantly interrupt you with a narrative that you're important. There are incidental side effects that make it semi-useful. Companies spend a lot of money on "make employees feel special" and Slack is merely a modern example of the genre.
This philosophical analysis of Slack is probably extendible past Slack into startups. Don't try to market something as interconnectedness, not in 2017. Try to sell something that symbolically, or whatever, tells people they're important.