How can we escape the ‘infinity loop?’

Adapted from Nonlinear: Navigating Design With Curiosity and Conviction (MIT Press, February 4, 2025). When I open my smartphone in the morning, every social media app is full of advertisements marketing something to me. I feel like I’m trapped in a circuitous loop from ads and information coming through my devices: “Buy this, buy that!”  We’re all stuck in this loop. Can we fix it? John Maeda (vice president of engineering, computational design, and AI at Microsoft)...