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When institutions remove friction, people are left to regulate themselves
Healthcare, digital platforms, workplaces and welfare systems increasingly design out friction: waiting, disagreement, boundaries, effort. This article argues that removing these constraints does not free people from regulation — it relocates the work of regulation inside them. When institutions no longer say "stop," "not now," or "this is not required," individuals must generate those limits themselves, continuously. Drawing on theories of risk, governmentality, and social acceleration, the article traces this mechanism across burnout research, the wellness industry, and platform-mediated labour, and anchors it in the Nordic paradox: welfare states that rank among the world's best-functioning while reporting rising rates of burnout and psychological distress. The argument reframes exhaustion and anxiety away from individual failure and toward the institutional conditions that produce them.
