The Connection Framework: How designers and developers can impact social connection
Karoline Winzer · Electronic workshops in computing · 2023
This paper outlines the importance of social connection and its relationship with connective technologies, defined as computer applications with the goal of creating or sustaining a social experience or network, including digital social media. We investigate how the choices made in constructing the design and algorithms used in connective technologies create both positive and negative effects. Especially as an explosion of AI content creation and metaverse technologies are rapidly entering the market, this becomes a critical conversation to avoid a repetition of previously made damaging effects. We propose a framework which designers and developers can use to better facilitate social connection, applying lessons learned from the rise of social media to new forms of interactive and immersive media.