If It Costs Nothing, It Means Nothing. On the Necessity of Friction in Audience Engagement
Last week I didn’t send you anything. But I have a good reason — I was at the Integration and Inclusion conference in Vilnius, where I was supposed to take part in a panel discussion with an intriguing title: “Media Without Credibility: Freedom or Crisis in a Multilingual Society?”
Two important and seemingly unrelated things (one observation and one event) happened at the conference.
First, my panel discussion was interrupted five minutes after it started (I did manage to say a few words about who I am and where I work, which at least made some inbound networking possible) due to a drone attack threat.
We all went down to the underground parking lot and waited for a message from the alert system confirming everything was fine, and we could return.
This triggered a lot of thoughts — about the fragility of the world, about what people in Ukraine experience under daily attacks, about how “peaceful skies” is no longer an empty phrase but something we should actually be working toward.
And on the professional side — unexpectedly, that underground parking lot is where the real networking began. We shared impressions, told each other what we do. It was one of the best professional exchange experiences I’ve had.
There was also another observation.
The organizers made participation in every discussion as easy as possible. For example, you scan a QR code, submit your question in the app, and the moderator reads it out at the end of each talk. Simple and convenient.
But the feeling that you’re not really participating (despite having asked a question) showed up immediately.
Your question is read by someone else. It’s no longer yours. And you made zero effort to ask it. You just type. That’s it. And the sense of engagement, the feeling that the answer is meant for you and not for some abstract question author — it’s gone.
This made me think:
When we talk about removing barriers to engagement, we need to distinguish between two types: those that block participation and those that actually create the conditions for it.
Good Friction, Bad Friction
Barrier-friction: any friction, complexity (technical, cognitive, emotional, any kind) that prevents someone from entering, engaging, participating.
The person wants to participate but can’t: an unclear procedure, fear, or organizational complexity. This kind of friction needs to be removed.
Participation-friction is the act of participation itself.
If something costs me nothing, what is the value of my action and my conscious contribution?
To ask a question, it’s better to stand up and ask it, rather than silently typing into an empty chat window while half-listening to the speaker.
Participation-friction is the moment when a person puts something of their own in: stands up and speaks, formulates a thought, decides to approach someone, decides to push back (and summons a little courage).
This is what makes both the participation and its result meaningful.
And when we design (offline or online) the way an audience engages with complex knowledge, expertise, data, and uncomfortable and sensitive questions as if we were designing an interface for an online store, we treat participation as a value in itself, and in doing so, reduce its value for both sides.
Participation requires some effort.
Friction by Design and some examples
Thinking back across many conferences I’ve attended, the best networking experience I ever had was two years ago at CultuTech Summit.
All participants filled out a short profile in the Talque app. Before and during the two-day conference, I could browse everyone by area and interest, read about each person, send a message, and schedule a meeting (seeing both my calendar and theirs) at the café, by the door, near that tree, or over at that counter, at any time.
I’m a sociable person, but it’s always hard to approach someone. Hard to know who to approach. That’s barrier-friction.
And this app removed it, while leaving the necessary effort intact: choose, think, write, show up.
I’ve never had more conversations than in those two days.
Participation-friction works differently: it needs to be preserved and sometimes deliberately designed. Ask the speaker a question in person, instead of sending a message.
What about online?
Let me turn to my own experience building Culturalist.fi — a bilingual media platform supporting the integration of Russian-speaking residents into Finnish society and culture.
We publish articles with feedback options and have tried different formats.
We tried simple, fast reactions — just marking “agree” or “disagree” with statements in an article. And we tried open-ended comments with no character limit, which we then translated and published under the article in both languages.
Here’s what I found: when we gave people a simple vote under a statement, the number of responses was critically low. When we offered the option of a full comment, we got dozens of thoughtful, complex, provocative, and detailed responses and opinions.
You’d think a simple click-to-vote flow would perform better. But it requires no engagement. It’s like clicking a CAPTCHA.
The option to reflect (sit down, think, write) produced great feedback.
Participation requires effort and a moment of ownership — I made this, I contributed this.
Effort on Both Sides: To Broadcast Is Not to Engage
Yes, I believe in the audience. I believe the audience is ready for complex content, and I believe friction is necessary for real engagement.
And there’s one more thing: the balance of effort matters.
If researchers spend a year or two on a study, then publish it, then a team organizes an event to present the findings, someone handles the logistics, the invitations, the catering, builds a media platform, sends a newsletter, then some degree of effort from the audience is simply necessary.
Without it, it’s broadcasting. It’s Netflix. And we know where that leads — worse content, low watch depth, half-listening while cooking, scrolling reels, or just falling asleep.
Yes, friction is needed. In the right moments, in the right proportions — so that engagement is valued by everyone involved.
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Genuinely insightful. Years ago, a teacher shared a thought that stuck with me: when everyone gains the ability to do something, it loses its value.
I think contemporary engagement mechanics, like the one that normalized by social media, is a good example of how chasing scale strips meaning from things that once mattered.
It's both curious and unsettling to think about where AI's generative capacity will empower us, and where it will quietly erode meaning instead.