Some thoughts on the way smartphone addiction is presented and portrayed

Got sent a video recently on how we need to get away from our phones. And got reminded of the frequent patterns that come up with the attention economy critique. These almost-PSAs are problematic for one major reason. Instead of telling people why the smartphone attention economy is designed the way it is, and what makes it addictive and what are its consequences (much like what the anti-nicotine ads have done); these videos focus on targeting the person using it. All the blame is put on the user. It's their fault that they're on the phones. It's their fault they're being driven to slot machines.

This is unfair. Most consumer Smartphone apps are "designed" to keep people hooked on to the app. Using deceptive patterns and habit loops to carrot and stick the user into staying hooked to the apps is somehow not a problem worth addressing but somehow people falling for it, is. It's a classic case of victim blaming.

Most screen time software is also designed on the same pattern of negative enforcement. Punishing the user with screen time limits vs actually encouraging healthier habits. There are three ways to solve an addiction. Take away what someone is addicted to; replace it with a less harmful addiction; encourage healthier habits and strive for long term lifestyle changes. Somehow design solutions for smartphone addiction are restricted to the former two, and not on the latter part of encouraging healthier habits which is shame, because it's the only type of solution genuinely treating people with respect rather than deriding them for their choices or habits.

Why do I care? I wrote an entire thesis trying to solve the problem using the "encourage healthier habits for long term lifestyle changes".

A London Memory

At a recent dinner, we were all going in rounds sharing their one london memory. When the question passed on to me, I was a little perplexed, since most of my London memories were unremarkable. But then I remembered how much I enjoyed walking across the city, it was the first time I was really enjoying walking.

So, that's that. My London memory is the walks I had there.

Replicating the real world vs the real world

For as long as computers have existed, technologists, designers and engineers have been trying to replicate the real world in a screen. Be it paper, the look of a calculator, the texture of leather, the motion of objects, entire life-like 3D worlds, you name it. The goal has been to have the computer blend into our surroundings.

But one of the interesting side effects of that "replicating the real world" has become a field of its own. Selling the illusion of reality has become more valuable than actually augmenting our reality.

When I see the future of computing, I believe the next computing revolution will be when we stop emulating the world around us, and start augmenting it, i.e. making our every day lives better with or without technological interventions. Does that mean AR glasses? No. Not at all, AR Glasses are merely a single way to augment reality. There are a million other-ways we can do that, without having to have privacy invasive computers. And something also tells me, the next computing revolution will also be around dedicated tools for dedicated tasks; not one general purpose tool for all tasks.

Beginnings of a new blog post.

Macro Photography?

Is this macro-photography? Stumbled upon this rather cool pattern at a restaurant recently.

P.S. Crunch season with app stuff, so posts are gonna be slim for the next few days.

Pinsa Rossa in SF is a top tier Pinseria

Pinsa Rossa in SF is excellent. Their Pinsa's are perfectly baked with the right amount of hydration, perfect fermentation, and a process that seems to put craft over looks. The result is a light weight, digestable Pinsa that stays true to the Pinsa romana legacy. 10/10 would recommend.

P.S. Love how their Burrata came "injected" with Olive Oil. Fun touch.

Drowning in a sea of work

In what's a very odd turn of events, I find myself, over-worked, and exhausted from trying to find a proper job; all at the same time. I have so much to do, so little time and everything seems to be top priority right now. Tense few weeks.

Gas powered ovens are criminally underrated

Baked Pizza in a gas powered oven after 1.5 years yesterday and was blown away by the jump in quality from the Ooni Volt (the industry leader in electric ovens); the amount of moisture loss in an electric oven is insane. I've been putting peaches on the Pizza recently, and I put them yesterday too. Except the difference was day and night, because the oven was partially open, the pizza went in and came out in like 90 seconds, the Pizza was quality was so much better! The peaches actually tasted fresh, they felt they were part of the Pizza rather than something completely dried out. The same was true for every other topping in yesterday's pizzas.

We often mention about the heat in a gas powered oven, but it's also the fact that it doesn't significantly reduce moisture content that makes the Pizzas so much better.

This blog is 19 years old!

Woohoo! VirtuosoVidit is 19 years old today. It was my first blog; primarily started it to have a "website" of my own, to feel like I made something on the internet too. I was 11 years old then and had no idea how to write articles and blogs. But it seeemed cool so I tried. Can't believe this thing's still on.

Recently I realised, I haven't shared much of my life on this blog in the last 19 years. So here's a recap.

Starting 2007, when I took the next natural step after writing blogs; i.e. writing and designing a full blown magazine for school students. I then designed games, and apps, completed my undergrad in between that, got a life changing scholarship, presented to Tim Cook, burnt myself out, learnt how to bake Pizza, and most recently graduated from UC Berkeley.

Nobody is reading anything

Getting someone's attention in 2025, is an uphill task. Over the last twelve months I have redesigned my portfolio, I have written 10+ blogposts on my professional blog, I have started to put out content on LinkedIn, Instagram and whatnot, I have burnt myself out writing things.

But I have not gotten readers. Across the total of 7000 views this year, people generally don't even spend a minute on my blog posts, which on average take about a couple of minutes to read. That's just one data point. My impression is, we're looking at attention spans of less than 20 seconds; for everything. Portfolios need to leave an impression in less than 10 seconds. Posts need to be short. Even Social media content needs to be like a sentence and a really striking picture.

Which then makes me question, where is the room for deep dives. Real content with real research. How does one bring that forward. What's the answer to actually following a process in the age of a 6s attention span?


One of the reasons I started doing really short posts on this blog was this. I wanted to put out something. Just anything without worrying about who reads them.

Maybe I should start Zines again.

Recent blog posts on my tech blog have been a bit of a miss. Nobody's really reading them; I personally have changed strategy more than twice in this year, and yet few have worked. So I have been thinking. What if I made zines again. My old zines were text heavy and absolutely not the right medium for smartphone consumption. But i feel i could do something with the vertical scrolling format in a PDF too. Maybe that should be my blog posts.

So MVDIT TECH BOOK makes a comeback after 6 years of hiatus? Maybe. We'll see.

Is it actually better to not study UI design at all?

Was rummaging through old files, and found one of the early LookUp designs that was very colorful and changed background colors with different modes.

I miss how I could go crazy about my designs when I didn’t study design and didn’t know any better. Back in 2014, I had very little design awareness, I had taken one coursera course and that's about it. So I had no idea what "platform conventions", "consistency" meant. I was just too happy to be designing something. So the first iteration for LookUp was a massive change. It involved crazy colourscheme changes and a completely navy-blue and dark color theme.

Ofourse now I know better and now software must support a 1000 other modes, including light and dark, and every platform has its own convention and want not. It makes me wonder, how much of design education is seeking conformity to norms and how much is it really about expressing yourself.

Consistency is a term that's been borrowed, weaponised and industrialised in teh last few years. From meaning that two similar things should look similar so that people are not confused, it's gone on to mean complete conformity with the interfaces ordained by the company's star designers and the branding that the OS provider uses; more recently it also means taking the fun out of your icons because everything must look the same and everything must support the 10 other modes that the OS provides. Right?

Anyhow. Here's LookUp 2. I had so much fun making this design, more than 10 years ago.

Missed post: More Shader Fun

Missed yesterday's blogpost of the day, as I was working on a major redesign for my app LookUp (which I now realise I haven't talked about at all on this blog) but for the last 13 years I have been working on a dictionary app called LookUp which enables english Learners to build their vocabulary. I am frantically working to ship a major redesign of the app currently. So more on it later.

But here's some fun stuff I did with shaders. I like to think of it as the Liquid from the Liquid Glass. ;)

Philz fall blends are ok.

Had the Vanilla soul the other day, not too bad, nothing extremely special but nothing terrible either, unlike their summer blends which were basically sugar syrup.

A little bit of Notting Hill in the middle of mission

Was walking on Mission, and found these group of houses that were way too remniscent of Notting Hill!

TIL Oracle Park also hosts Soccer (Football) matches

And they host it pretty well! Had a lot of fun watching the soccer game at Oracle Park, SF today. A venue that's usually reserved for Baseball.

Everyone is the Steve Jobs of their own startup

The best quote on Steve Jobs came from one of his biggest rivals, Bill Gates. "So many of the people who want to be like Steve have the asshole side down. What they're missing is the genius part." I wish more people realised that.

Every startup in the silicon valley thinks that they need at least one of them to be Steve Jobs. They play the the asshole, overconfident, uppity designer part to the tee, they will not even acknowledge your presence in the room, unless you have the social clout. The other one has to play the technical nerd guru. Expert in their own right, the Woz to the Jobs so to speak.

This was true 10 years ago. This is true today. The number of idiots who think being an asshole and overconfident about their little products will have them reach some sort of cult status is crazy.

The thing is, it's easy to be the asshole in the room, it's more difficult to be the genius person. Which ironically is the wrong lesson to take from Jobs' life. Steve Jobs was one of the greatest product people to exist on the planet. He knew computers from inside out. He had a vision for what he wanted computing to be, he had the knowledge, and most importantly he spent 40 years of his life doing that; but his personal life was a mess. His behaviour towards others should never be glorified. Like every other person on this planet, him being good at one thing didn't make him an expert at others. I wish more people chose to be as disciplined as him, chose to master their craft as he did. But instead, people wake up one day, and decide they'll just take all the wrong lessons from his life.

Sometimes a break is necessary

Sometimes, even if you haven't achieved anything in the day, even if there's a ton of work left, even if it feels like you've not 'earned' a break--It's necessary to take one.

Why? breaks are great to put you at ease, and offer a change of perspectives.

Love watching movies for that reason. But offlate I had become a bit sluggish with my work, and I was wondering the other day, how much of a two hour gaming session helped me mentally time things back in 2021 - 2022. It's crazy but a high pressure cricket match teaches you a lot, even if it's a game simulation.

Any how, booted up my Xbox again and had a great time playing my favourite game.

Clanker is a unique slur

In the last few weeks the Clanker a Star Wars fandom slur used against the robots in the franchise, has become popular for its derogatory nature and imminent robophobia, that will come once robots start coexisting with humans. In short, If robots become sentient, and if robophobia is rampant, and if humans want to express their hatred towards a robot, a slur they can use against them is "clanker". This is a lot of ifs.

Sadly the tech community loves making wild assumptions about the future of consumer technology. A few years ago it was the Metaverse and VR (one of the wildest theory I heard at the time was that it's gotta be successful if enough people put enough money into marketing it, we all know how that went), Right now it's robots. People look at LLMs, People look at its "human-like" capabilities, and people go "Ah! Robots are coming soon". That's not happening. Humanoid Robots with sentience are not a thing of today, they'll not be a thing for a long time (maybe ever), for the simple reason that machines can't mimic human-to-human interactions as they lack any affordance of shared context. But I digress.

You can't use a slur against inanimate objects. They don't have sentience, so they're not being insulted. So Clanker is really just a made up slur, for a made up future, it's someone's figment of imagination that people have decided to collectively play along. Or is it?

Well first, most of English is a figment of someone's imagination that people decided to collectively play along. Words have meanings because someone decided what something means, and everyone in power agreed. Slurs are no different. But this power goes further back. Robots don't have sentience unless we don't collectively start thinking and acting towards them as humans. Sentience is as much about a person's feelings towards the bot as it is about the bot's feelings towards the person. If a person strongly feels something about a bot, that feeling is just as valid to the person as it is about any other sentient being. So if they feel extreme hatred towards the bot, it's a real feeling, that should not be ignored. And if that feeling manifests in a slur, the differences between that and a slur against a human are smaller than you think.

Both slurs are about a person's feelings towards something or someone. Slurs are problematic because they're a symbol of extreme hatred. They're more about the person giving them than the person on the receiving end. They're a mirror to a person's feelings. So is Clanker problematic? It's a reflection of a person's extreme hatred towards a technology.

Perusing books

A recent habit that I developed is walking up to the nearby book store, and perusing through different covers and books. Why? It offers great creative inspiration to look at so many different art styles and designs together. It's even more fun if you're looking at it with a friend, so you can share notes too! :)

The correct way of storing strawberries

Discovered this recently. But the best way to store strawberries so that they don't go bad is to keep them dry, in a container that's lined with a paper towel, in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator (aka Chiller drawer?). Been eating these strawberries for 7 days. They haven't gone bad yet. Luckily!

Alternatively you can also share some with your neighbours. ;)

"You're incredibly talented"

I have heard this phrase so often now, it's stopped making sense to me. I don't know what talents I possess that I have been rejected by every company I applied to as a Product Designer / Prototyper. Some days are more difficult than others. :/

Movie Recommendation: Coolie

I don't think I have seen a lot of Rajnikanth movies, So I don't know what's a quintessential "Rajni" Movie. But if it's anything like Coolie, I can understand the craze. Coolie is a thoroughly entertaining watch. The story's no citizen cane, it has its fair share of plot-holes and unwanted twist; but its the actors and a fluid screenplay that keep the movie engaging. The film seldom skips a beat.

I particularly enjoyed Soubin Shahir's performance, along with ofcourse Rajnikanth who at this point just exhumes screen-precense (and why wouldn't he, it's his 171th movie) the guy has his is own aura.

Anirudh Ravichander has perfected the art of giving music to the Lokesh and Atlee genre of movies. The music is cut from the same cloth as Jawaan, and Vikram, and Leo but it's still got fresh elements. Particularly enjoyed Mobsta, Powerhouse, I am the Danger, and Coolie Disco. Great songs.

I don't know what's much to say about this movie, apart from the fact that it's hella fun to watch. If you're having a bad week like me, Coolie's the perfect stress buster, filled with old-school ethical heroes who take the people first approach, so their victories feel personal.


Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.5 stars for the movie, and an extra 0.5 for the soundtrack)

Tariff and Taarif have the same word root.

My latest discovery is that the hindi/urdu word Taarif -- which means praise has the same root word as Tariff - which is taxes.

Tariff (English) -- Taxes: Arabic (taʿrīf “notification, definition, schedule”) → Italian (tariffa) → French (tariffe / tarif) → English (tariff)

Taarif (Hindi / Urdu) -- Praise: Arabic (taʿrīf “notification, making known” → “commendation”) → Persian (taʿrīf “praise, commendation”) → Hindi/Urdu (tārīf “praise, compliment”)
Two words that sound similar, have similar roots, but have such different meanings. Words and how they travel is fascinating.

You're missing out if you don't try Shojin Ryori food

Love Cha-Ya in SF. Love the concept behind Shojin Ryori, the Japanese traditional Vegan food. Moreover it's the balance of flavors that blows me away everytime. Nothing is too spicy, too salty, too sweet or tooo sour. It's all perfectly balanced food that's light on the stomach and satisfying to eat. I'd eat it any day.

Coolie is all entertainment

Proper review tomorrow, but Coolie is complete entertainment. Banger soundtrack, Rajnikanth pulling off things only he can pull off, Soubin Shahir in sublime form and a movie that's just thoroughly entertaining from start to finish. I loved every bit of it, especially the back story.

Two similar Stairways

Is it just me or does the Doe Library Main Stacks' stairway looks similar to the Vatican's stairway. I wonder if that was the inspiration?

The Doe Library Stairway


The Vatican Stairway

Discovering a new artist while walking in SF

Was walking in SF the other day, and discovered this really interesting and colorful mural on the wall of the San Francisco Proper Hotel. A couple of google searches later, I discover that this is a mural called "Untitled" by an artist named Alicia McCarthy.

McCarthy's work is inspiring, and the fact that she decided to donote half the fee to charity is pretty commendable too. I loved reading about the Tenderloin Murals.

Coffee and Croissants

Vegan Coffee and Half a Croissant on a table in evening sun light.

The Vidit Film Archive is taking shape

I love collecting physical media. Great Indie movies or the ones produced by smaller producers, often fall through the cracks when it comes to streaming services. Plus, if you want to reference them or take notes, there's no way to screenshot and annotate them. There's no ownership of media on the internet. Physical disks, are another story all together. My personal collection that I fondly call the "Vidit Film Archive" is taking shape again after a good 20+ years of having mostly VCDs and some DVDs; I'm finally moving to better quality video.

Workflow for writing large blog posts

Follow up to previous post. Here's my workflow for writing bigger blog posts. Takes about two weeks to make them, and it's a lot of getting ideas down into something readable. So yea, when folks read my posts it means a lot.

What it takes to write a Big Blog Post

Slightly meta post today. Posts of the Day are easy. I just spend 5 minutes on them and that's it. But bigger posts, they take a lot more effort. I first do rough drafts, then I created a post outline, write down the post, then I design the graphics for each of the elements in the post, combine it together in a post, create social media assets, and then publish and share it with folks.

It's a lot of painstaking effort and usually with minuscule rewards. But I am determined to share my learnings.






The Post in Question is published on my other blog here.

TIAT Place is a fun event to attend

Attended a Creative Technologist's meetup yeesterday, it's called "TIAT place" short for the Intersection of Art and Technology. Fun event with a lot of cool design / maker-ey stuff presented. I loved how each person went through their design process in detail for projects that were side hobbies at best.

The Event happened at the Internet Archive (yes! It's a physical space), which in itself is a fun venue. The central auditorium feels more like a church(!?). I find the whole event fascinating.

Creative Technologists are a small clique in the Bay Area, they don't advertise about the events much, but once you get in, they seem generally cordial and everyone kinda knows everyone else. What's interesting though is that these people aren't really pursuing creative technology in their day jobs, which makes me wonder how many Creative Technologists are actually working as creative technologists; and why then is this such a clique. One of the most annoying habits of Silicon Valley designers is just how performative their "attitude" is. They'll intentionally be hard-to-grab attention, hyper confident in their own work, and follow a "I will only really listen to you if you're a proven designer" attitude to conversation. The nice ones happily strike up a conversation; and they're the ones staying in touch with.

Some pictures from the event:

The feeling of nothing is sufficient

In the last 8 months, job hunt has been stressful yes, but it’s the feeling of “no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, it’s just not enough” that’s stuck with me and it’s soul crushing.

There's always a deadline, I am always last minute to it, because I have been doing so much else, yet at the end of the day, It seems like I am not doing enough to fulfill my goals.


P.S. Attended the second tiat place event at the Internet Archive today, and it was refreshing to go out and meet more creative technologists. But more on it later. This is foreshadowing tomorrow's post.

Movie Recommendation: Elevator Pitch by Alexx Zaki

Alexx Zaki's debut short film Elevator Pitch is a timely take on the process of job-hunting. The process is robotic, de-humanising and soul crushing. Alexx does a great job representing it in few words. The actors are terrific, they show a range of depth in such few words. Watch out for the "hip-VP", that person conveys so much in a single dialogue.

Highly recommend spending four minutes of your time on this terrific short film.

P.S. I must disclose, Alexx is one of my best friends, so I am inclined to enjoy everything they make; but even so, this is an unbiased, honest take. I have already seen this short twice.

Sunsets

Just some beautiful sunsets with the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance.

Music I'm listening to in 2025

With good Hindi and Tamil music in short supply these days. I have shifted to listening to more Punjabi music in the last couple of years. Really enjoying the works of Sharry mann, Amrit Mann, Prabh Singh, and Zehr Vibe apart from the usual suspects.

Here's my playlist:

The Illusion of a good Pizza

Went to Doppio Zero, one of SF's only few AVPN certified Pizzerias, basically one of the few Pizzerias in SF that can claim that their Pizzas match the Italian standardization body's strict requirements for what's a True Neapolitan Pizza. I have my doubts on that.


This Pizza looks great. It looks like a true Neapolitan Pizza. The Cheese and the preparations are on point, the pizza tastes great too, the sauce is balanced (just crushed tomatoes) and flavours on point. But it's a heavy pizza, in fact too heavy for what a 12" Neapolitan Pizza should be. The after-taste is not great at all. It's not easily digestable, the crust is too doughy and not fun to eat.


Look at the gluten net, it's too dense! This isn't a great pizza at all!

How do I know this? I made a very similar mistake about a week back. The Pizza looks great. But does the Pizza have the right impact on our stomachs, maybe not.

To be fair, this is nitpicking and I am a bit of a Pizza purist here. This is a practice popular across SF, and Doppio Zero is one of the better ones. But I believe a good traditional neapolitan pizza is the one that's easy to digest, not the one that looks the part.