How Interface Design Choices Lead to Indirect Environmental Impacts Through Use Intensification

In sustainable HCI, the ‘Cornucopian Paradigm’ describes how the expansion of digital services goes hand in hand with the growth of digital infrastructure and its environmental footprint. Yet, the mechanisms driving this paradigm are not well understood at the design level. As a case study, we investigate how messaging apps factor in the cornucopian paradigm by conducting a feature analysis of 17 apps complemented with 12 user interviews. We identify four scale-up mechanisms that explain how design contributes to the cornucopian paradigm. These mechanisms all contribute to use intensification, i.e., digital practices becoming more intensive and leading to more data intensity, to infrastructure expansion, and indirectly to device obsolescence and replacement. Our analysis of use intensification builds upon a set of recurring cornucopian design patterns we identified in messaging apps. To mitigate the cornucopian paradigm, we propose a set of moderation heuristics to guide design decisions.