🪷 Wellbeing
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Nov 4, 2024
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6 min read
If you’ve ever opened an app “just to take a quick look” and found yourself losing 30 minutes. If sometimes you catch yourself scrolling in the morning before saying a single word. This article is for you.
In this article, we’ll cover several topics:
The intentionally addictive design of apps
The infinite scroll and the “soup” experience
What happens in your brain when you scroll
Concrete tips to escape the whirlwind
The goal? To help you take control of your screen time and finally understand why it's so hard to resist the well-oiled mechanisms of social media. So grab a coffee, some snacks, and enjoy the read!
🧲 The Intentionally Addictive Design of Apps
In 2004, Patrick Le Lay, then CEO of TF1 —a popular media group in France, openly revealed his business model:
“What we sell to Coca-Cola is available human brain time.”
This statement shocked people at the time, but it simply bluntly stated a phenomenon that had long existed and intensified with the rise of the Internet and social media.
This phenomenon is known as the attention economy.
American economist Herbert Simon was the first to introduce this concept in 1971. He said:
“In a world flooded with information, the consumer’s attention becomes a valuable and scarce resource.”
Digital platforms and social media are based on a free-to-use model, meaning that in exchange for our attention, we can use them without cost. Their profits come from selling advertisements.
As a result, they not only aim to capture our attention but also to keep it for as long as possible. The more active users they have on their platform, the higher their advertising space value becomes.
Your attention has become the gold of the 21st century. Here’s a very sophisticated diagram to explain it ⬇️
Tech giants (Google, Meta, TikTok, Twitter, and the rest of the crew) are putting in huge efforts and hiring dozens of neuroscientists to develop methods that make you increasingly dependent.
At Stanford, these strategies are even taught in a course called Captology (short for Computers as Persuasive Technologies).
The “infinite scroll” is one of those features that has become omnipresent. You take a one-minute break between tasks, grab your phone for a quick LinkedIn check. Twenty minutes later, your thumb (or index finger, depending on your preference) is still scrolling, almost automatically, with no end in sight. A feeling of guilt overwhelms you instantly. "Damn, why am I doing this?"
🥣 The Endless Scroll and the Soup
The inventor of infinite scroll in 2006, Aza Raskin, explains it himself. Now a repentant creator, he compares his invention to a glass that refills automatically from the bottom, without any effort on our part. The result: we end up drinking “a lot, lot more.”
This statement is supported by a very telling experiment conducted by Brian Wansink in 2005. About fifty individuals were invited to eat soup from a bowl placed in front of them. Half of them received regular bowls, while the other half were given automatically refilling bowls (connected to a reservoir containing six liters of soup, which poured into the bowl via a pressure valve).
They were informed that they would be trying a new tomato soup recipe and were encouraged to eat as much as they liked. After 20 minutes, the participants were thanked and given a questionnaire asking them, among other things, to estimate how much they thought they had eaten.The results were revealing.
Those who ate from the bottomless bowls consumed 73% more soup on average! Yet, they didn’t believe they had eaten more.The experiment demonstrates that when we eat, we rely on visual cues: an empty plate signals “I’m done.” But if that cue disappears, we eat significantly more. And most importantly, we underestimate how much we’ve consumed.
Two key takeaways:
Changing visual cues about consumption influences how much we eat.
Our estimation of consumption and perception of fullness is more influenced by visual cues than by the actual quantity we consume.
➡️ That’s exactly the principle of infinite scroll: without an end, we consume much more content and lose track of time. A double hit.
Personal Note: You may not have noticed, but Google abandoned its traditional pagination on mobile in favor of infinite scroll at the end of 2021.
🧠 What's Happening in Your Brain when you Scroll?
In addition to altering visual cues, tech companies leverage how our brains work to capture our attention for longer periods.
Simply put, scrolling disrupts the brain's reward system—the system that reinforces our behavior, either positively or negatively.
B.F. Skinner, a pioneer in behavioral psychology, demonstrated that the "intermittent reinforcement" approach is the most addictive and the most resistant in the long term.
Imagine you're playing a video game where you win every time. Fun at first, right? But soon enough, it gets monotonous. Now, add another variable: you only win from time to time, unpredictably.
The uncertainty of winning, yet with the constant possibility of it happening – that’s what makes the game so irresistible.
That’s why game developers avoid both overly simple and overly complicated games. They aim for a balance where winning is possible but never guaranteed. Uncertainty creates intrigue.
Social media platforms understand this well, and it’s exactly what their algorithms exploit. When you scroll through Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn, you won’t find every piece of content interesting, only some.
In your brain, the uncertainty created by this mechanism releases small doses of dopamine each time you come across something interesting. This intermittent dopamine release creates a powerful vicious cycle: you want to relive that rewarding feeling, so you keep scrolling, hoping to find the next “dopamine-triggering” content.
Infinite scroll plays with our brain chemistry to keep us engaged. And this is not without consequences for our emotional fatigue and mental health (we’ll dive into that in a future issue).
Understanding the problem is crucial—it’s the first step to taking back control of your attention.
🌀 How Can You Escape the Whirlwind?
The ease of access to an uninterrupted stream of content and the varying levels of interest can quickly lead us into compulsive scrolling. To break this cycle, it’s crucial to introduce some friction between yourself and this mechanism. Here are a few tips:
#1 - Have a Clear Intention When you Open an App
Before going on Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn, try asking yourself why you’re going there, and what content or creator you want to check out.Since doing this on your own might not always be enough, I recommend using the app Jomo, available for free on iPhone, iPad and Mac.
You can set up a blocking rule (e.g., "Conscious Use" —that blocks all your apps by default). To use them, you'll need to ask for a break to Jomo. This method helps you regain intentionality by imposing a 10-second delay every time you open a “problematic” app, asking if you really want to proceed. I personally use it with Twitter.
#2 - Set Time and Usage Limits
Blocking certain sites at specific times —like during work hours, and reserving dedicated times for browsing these platforms is a great solution. This way, it becomes easier to focus on your tasks and avoid distractions during key moments.
Setting daily time limits (for example, 30 minutes) can also help make that time more intentional and valuable. You can use the Jomo app for this too!
#3 - Control the Nature of the Content
The choice of information sources, accounts, or influencers you follow is crucial. Curating what truly adds value is essential to ensure your feed stays relevant and high-quality. You’ll see more of what interests you and less of what leaves you indifferent, reducing intermittent engagement.
By doing this, you return to the essence of what content consumption should be. Newsletters are great channels—they deliver the essentials, avoiding the endless content hunt.
#4 - Avoid Discovery Mode
Many platforms offer discovery/suggestions feeds, which make compulsive scrolling easier. Here are a few immediate tips:
YouTube: Stick to a “watch later” list or specific playlists, and avoid shorts!
LinkedIn: Save posts you find interesting and read them only when you have time.
Instagram: Steer clear of Reels, avoid the "For You" page (stick to "Following")
X: Avoid the “For You” tab and stick to the “Following” tab.
To sum up, fighting against endless scrolling isn't something "that" simple. On the contrary, everything is optimized to make it difficult for you to stop naturally. But remember one thing: you only have one life, so spend your time wisely and keep in mind that, for many, your time is just money. 😉
