Sunday, May 7, 2017

Social Friction

At my Adobe internship, my desk is located on the Southeast corner of the third floor, as shown on this floor sketch:

*(which was never drawn)*.

During the day, I take occasional journeys to the...

*(5 years later)*...

snack bar, where I get coffee, water, and snacks. On my way back, I've found two competing alternative paths. One is composed of four straight segments connected by straight angles, simple and shorter. The other one traverses ~ten smaller such segments, and makes its way through a simple maze of cubicles that one feels is not the shorter path 

Yet I tend to prefer the second path. Why? Because the first one, on its last segment, walks right past 10 other interns in the same research area as me, and we tend to exchange awkward and forces smiles that I feel I'm pushing through as I walk there. I feel it takes more energy for me to walk that path than to walk a slightly longer distance and turn on my path left and right in an arbitrary sequence.

This leads me to state that there is such a thing as Social Friction. A force that resists movement along a path by repelling behavior (to the mover/observer) exhibited by societal members placed close to this path.

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