Recoloring Experience

Why Emotional Impact Is the New Luxury in a Desensitized World

We live in a desaturated world — visually, emotionally, and culturally. A 2020 study of over 7,000 objects in the UK’s Science Museum collection revealed a long, slow fade: once-vibrant reds, yellows, and blues have been replaced by greys, blacks, and beiges. Design has become more muted, interfaces have become invisible and even our moods have been dulled. In 2024, Gallup reported that 23% of the global population felt lonely “a lot of the day yesterday.” That’s nearly one in four people emotionally adrift in an always-on world.

We designed ourselves out of feeling.

For the past two decades, the pursuit of seamlessness and efficiency has defined everything — from checkout flows to customer journeys, from restaurant menus to entire social lives. Brands, products, and platforms have optimized every interaction for speed, personalization, and frictionless delivery.

The COVID-19 pandemic compelled a global shift to remote work, transforming homes into offices and human interactions into pixelated grids. While tools like Zoom and Teams ensured continuity, they also introduced a new set of challenges. These platforms dulled the nuances of real-time communication: no body language, no casual decompression after a meeting, no shared silences that deepen understanding. A 2022 study found that 74% of software developers missed casual social interactions with colleagues, and 51% reported a decline in communication ease (Ford et al., 2022). Research published in Nature Human Behavior revealed that remote work reduced the diversity of collaboration networks, making spontaneous exchange increasingly rare (Yang et al., 2021). In removing friction, we’ve removed the texture of connection.

Self-checkouts account for nearly 40% of pay lanes at US grocery chains, according to Catalina Marketing. And more than 4 in 5 (84%) Americans report they like using self-service kiosks at stores, with 66% claiming they would choose a self-checkout lane over cashing out with a human cashier. But Toni Antonucci, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, says that “weak ties” — described as warm, low-stakes relationships, like the ones between cashiers and repeat customers — are a critical tool for maintaining emotional well-being, especially later in life as social circles shrink.

We’ve spent years removing buttons, clicks, and complexity. But in removing friction, we also risked removing meaning. And now, with AI accelerating everything from content creation to interface design, we’re not just seeing faster outputs — we’re feeling less of everything. True emotional connection often requires effort. Without friction, there is no emotion. And without emotion, there is no connection. Frictions aren’t inefficiencies, they are emotional touchpoints.

We've also started to mistaken content for culture. In the relentless churn of trends and the algorithmic race for relevance, brands and people have become content factories. This has created a cultural rot — a landscape of aesthetics and noise without meaning. Mimicking culture without adding to it. While loneliness reaches global epidemic levels.

When Everything Is Content, Nothing Sticks

With all the new AI tools in our hands, content is no longer scarce — it’s exponential. Since 2010, the amount of data generated globally has grown over 70-fold. In 2023 alone, humanity produced 120 zettabytes of data — and by 2025, that number is expected to climb to 181 zettabytes, a staggering 150% increase in just two years (Statista; Bernard Marr & Co.).

But story here isn’t about the data, it’s about the saturation of our senses.

More than half of all internet traffic is now driven by video content — and social platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook have become engines of perpetual motion, optimizing for watch time, virality, and scroll speed. Every minute, over 231 million emails are sent, nearly 6 million Google searches are conducted, and more than a million hours of content are streamed (Domo, 2022). The internet is alive with noise. But when everything is “content,” what is worth remembering?

This volume isn’t neutral, it’s desensitizing. Every swipe, every stream, every push notification contributes to the numbing of emotional response. As screens flood with input, our capacity to feel is throttled by repetition and speed.

Brands, creators, and platforms have adapted by producing more, faster — mistaking scale for significance. In this sea of sameness, the loudest voice isn’t the winner. It’s the one that makes someone pause. The one that creates a moment of unexpected intimacy, friction, or emotional clarity. If we’ve entered the era of content inflation, then emotional resonance is the new currency of value.

The Age of Engineered Intimacy - How the Connection Economy Will Define the Next Cultural Renaissance



We’re living through a paradox: infinite connectivity and content, but growing emotional isolation. But there is a quiet cultural revolt emerging — not against technology itself, but against the flattening of human experience it often brings. Not about nostalgia, but about a deep, collective craving for friction, presence, and connection.


The more the world is flattened by automation, the more value rises in what can’t be automated: awe, meaning, and human connection. We’re not starved for content — we’re starved for impact. In a saturated, optimized, always-on world, what cuts through is not volume — but vibration. It’s the difference between being noticed and being remembered. Between watching and feeling. Between existing in the feed and living in the mind.

The future will favor those who create emotional infrastructure — not just platforms, but rituals, interfaces, and moments that help us feel seen, heard, and together. The brands, creators, and companies who will matter in the coming decade are those who offer experiences that shake people out of numbness — emotionally resonant, sensorially alive, and deeply human. The best brands in 2025 won’t just chase virality — they’ll build something worthy of being remembered. We need fewer mimicries of culture and more movements that enrich it. Relevance isn’t about aesthetic flexes — it’s about emotional resonance and long-term contribution. In a world of infinite content, the most rebellious thing you can do is make someone feel deeply. Friction is Not the Enemy — It’s the Opportunity.

A New Mandate: Design for Feeling

As the interfaces got smarter, the emotional impact got thinner and we got more isolated. But it’s not irreversible and not the end of emotion. A new design era — one where emotional resonance becomes a competitive edge, is taking hold. You can already see it in rise of formats, spaces, and social rituals designed to repair our social fabric. Platforms like Timeleft and Creative Lunch Club pair you with new people over shared meals — not for romance, but for conversation. Ancient brotherhoods like the Freemasons are gaining new life as Gen Z men seek structured community and purpose beyond algorithms. These aren’t just cute case studies for presentations, they’re signals of a cultural shift: from connection as convenience to connection as craft.

The new luxury isn’t personalization. It’s presence and friction. And the brands that win tomorrow won’t just be faster, cheaper, or smarter. They’ll be felt. Asking how do we give people something to talk about with someone else? Where can we engineer micro-interactions that feel spontaneous, not scripted? How do we turn passive moments into co-created ones? In this new era, experience design becomes social design.

The best branded experiences will not only delight — they’ll facilitate belonging.

Five Creative Principles for Designing for Impact:

• Design for Emotion, Not Just Attention

  Attention is a metric, but emotion is a memory. Ask: what do we want people to feel — not just do?

  
  

• Use Contrast as a Creative Weapon

  In a world of sameness, contrast creates wakefulness. Surprise, silence, symbolism, texture — interrupt the scroll and provoke emotional response.

  
  

• Create Participation, Not Just Performance

  The most powerful experiences are not watched — they’re lived. Invite your audience into the process and let them shape the journey.

  
  

• Anchor Everything in Human Insight

  AI can replicate patterns, but only humans can decode contradiction, culture, and context. Start with the human truth, not trends.

  
  

• Leave Room for Mystery

  In a world obsessed with clarity and conversion, mystery becomes magnetic. Suggest, don’t oversell, invite people to feel — and finish the story themselves.