From 'Always On' to 'Fully Present' w/ Matt Yao

12/3/25

Matt’s full essay is featured in our inaugural Collection—Life in the Scroll Age.

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Matt Yao joins Content Director, Nimayi Dixit, to expand on the ideas from his essay Always On to Fully Present.

They explore some of the core design principles Matt lays out for designing healthier consumer tech devices. These key principles include:

  1. Aligning business incentives with consumer well-being,

  2. Designing more intelligent devices that adapt to the rhythms of life, and

  3. Creating simpler devices that do just a few things well, rather than everything-in-one.

They go into details, envisioning various product ideas and also discussing the challenges to implementing these types of design principles.

This is part of 'Under the Oak Tree'—a series where TQ writers and editors chat about the ideas featured in their essays.

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