Social media experiences currently, are built for engagement at the direct expense of the users mental health.
Avg time spent on social media per week
18 hours 36 minutes
acc to DataReportal's 2026 overview report
Challenge
What would a content consumption experience look like if it was actually useful and not exploitative?
We were asked to reimagine an existing digital product and we chose LinkedIn.
Research
LinkedIn feels performative and irrelevant.
We started by interrogating our own relationship with the platform and talking to peers about how LinkedIn actually makes them feel when they open it.
I don't even open it anymore, all it does is make me compare myself to everyone.
It's full of posts about how getting married taught someone B2B sales.
Nobody is realistic on there. Only posting fake positive things for visibility.
My feed recently has a lot of forced suggestions that i don't care about.
People are so tired that there is an entire subreddit dedicated to hating on linkedin content.
Problem
People use LinkedIn for different things but end up getting distracted by the constant noise and professional FOMO.
Job seeker
Uses linkedIn to network and find companies or people that are hiring. Comes online and sees everyones success stories and layoff posts. Feels overwhelmed and spends 2 hours just scrolling.
Working professional/startup founder
New tech updates, AI tools, keeping up with the ever changing news. See's posts offering adivce/sharing stories from their work. Closes linkedin.
I started thinking about why this noise even exists? What causes people to act like this?
01
"Get recruiters to notice you"
This one is the most obvious, the job market is so bad that for anyone trying to find a job or switch a job has to find ways to stand out and posting on linkedin is the easiest ways to do that but they end up just adding to the noise.
02
Everyone is building a personal brand and advancing their career except me.
It's famously called the red queen effect. Everyone is posting and commenting not necessarily to get ahead or help others, but purely to avoid falling behind the professional visibility curve and they now feel pressured to post more frequently or more dramatically, simply to try and stand out.
Solution
Content is relevant to users needs, avoiding distraction and comparision loop.
Organizing LinkedIn's feed into tabs so feed is curated for the specific goal.
Reduced algorithmic noise so users get more value from the platform.
Focus mode so feed prioritizes relevance to the user's selected objective rather than engagement potential.
No infinite scrolling to protect users time
Users can choose to start a new goal or exit instead of linkedin immediately serving more content.
Side note - A more personalized feed would also allow for more relevant ads and increased click-through rates.
After we presented, the whole room resonated with our redesign, so many people said they'd start using LinkedIn again if it were adopted.
Reflection
Designing and prototyping in 1 hour meant compromising on visuals.
Come back again and I might have changed some things up :p
