All the topics within the Critical Interface Manifesto was stimulating and of valuable insight. After reading through them, I decided to focus on tenant #13: In the design of the interface, not only skills but also emotions and affects are deployed. How are emotions produced and circulated in interfaces? A couple of proposals within that tenant were "Have breakfast first, then connect. It is not necessary turn on your smartphone in the bed. Or: connect first and have no breakfast.", "Laugh out loud every time you put a smiley.", and "The means of emotion predictions are today's means of production."
The propositions under this claim I found to be particularly interesting, because of how it taps into the most complex of all complex systems -- emotions. A good amount of the propositions listed were tips typically associated in self-improvement books, such as choosing to power down all devices and go for a walk or run, or choosing to leave a mobile device at home for an entire day (which, is an ongoing trend within the YouTube community). However, some of the propositions were definitely ones that would create odd discomfort, such as choosing to either have breakfast first, and then connect on social media, or choosing to connect, and then banning oneself from having any breakfast at all. One of the ones that stuck out most with me was "the means of emotions predictions are today's means of production.", and what I took away from that, was the idea that emotions heavily play into the productivity and how we conduct each day. As a creative, I particularly feel that my self-worth is correlated with my ability and quality of the things I produce, and so I feel as though this sentence can be applied vice versa as well, in that today's means of production, many times, end up heavily influencing my means of emotions. This is a trait that, I hope to get rid of over time, and better understand to separate my work from my own self worth.