Journal of Digital Attention Harm and Human-Interface Ethics
Kim, J., Reeves, P., Osei, L.
Department of Digital Attention Science, Meridian Institute of Technology
Applied Human-Computer Harm Research Unit, University of Dovehill
Received: 12 February 2025 · Accepted: 12 February 2025
This study quantifies the attentional and temporal consequences of infinite scroll interface design on discretionary digital consumption behavior. The Bottomless Feed Temporal Loss Index (BFTLI) was administered to 308 participants across scroll-bounded and unbounded interface conditions over six weeks. Participants in unbounded conditions consumed a mean of 47 additional minutes of content per day without planning to do so. Ninety-two percent described their most recent extended scroll session as beginning with a specific intent that was not fulfilled by the session's actual content. Infinite scroll did not make the content better. It made leaving it harder. These are not the same thing.
Infinite scroll — the interface design pattern in which content loads continuously as the user reaches the page bottom, eliminating natural stopping points — was introduced to digital platforms in the late 2000s as an engagement optimization tool (Aza Raskin, 2009, who has since publicly expressed regret about the design). Unlike paginated interfaces, which create discrete content boundaries providing natural decision points for continuation, infinite scroll removes the mechanism by which users might stop and reassess. The result is a consumption environment with no intrinsic endpoint, designed to sustain engagement beyond the point at which the user would otherwise choose to exit. The present study provides the first longitudinal assessment of temporal loss attributable to infinite scroll interfaces, treating the design not as a neutral feature but as an architecture specifically optimized to extend usage at the user's expense.
Participants.
Three hundred and eight adults (M age = 27.3, SD = 5.8) were randomly assigned to scroll-bounded (paginated, n = 154) or unbounded (infinite scroll, n = 154) interface conditions across matched content platforms. Exclusion criteria included professional social media roles and participants who described their relationship with their phone as 'healthy' without providing evidence (n = 22). IRB protocol DA-2024-0113 was approved.
Instruments.
The Bottomless Feed Temporal Loss Index (BFTLI; 19 items, α = .89) measured intended versus actual session duration, intent fulfillment rate, and post-session account of time. Screen time data were collected objectively via device-logged usage. A control group used paginated interfaces and was able to locate the moment they could have stopped.
Procedure.
BFTLI, intent logs, and screen time data were collected weekly over six weeks.
Temporal Overconsumption.
Unbounded interface participants consumed a mean of 47.2 additional minutes of content per day compared to paginated controls, t(306) = 14.8, p < .001, d = 1.69. This represents a weekly surplus of 5.5 hours of unplanned digital consumption.
Intent Fulfillment Rate.
Ninety-two percent of unbounded users reported that their most recent extended session began with a specific content intent (a message, a post, a search) that was not the primary content consumed. Mean deviation time — from arrival at specific intent to departure from interface — was 38.4 minutes (SD = 14.7).
Session Termination Behavior.
Bounded interface users identified a specific stopping decision in 87% of sessions. Unbounded users identified a specific stopping decision in 23% of sessions. In 77% of cases, session termination was described as 'eventually' or 'when my phone got warm.'
The 92% intent deviation finding describes the infinite scroll mechanism most precisely: users arrive with a purpose, the interface immediately provides something adjacent but different, and the purpose is absorbed into the scroll. Forty-seven minutes of daily unplanned consumption is the daily cost at which this absorption operates.
The session termination data are the study's most revealing behavioral finding. In bounded interfaces, users decide to stop. In unbounded interfaces, sessions terminate through fatigue, notification, or thermal threshold — conditions that are not decisions. The absence of a designed endpoint means the user's exit is not a choice made at a natural stopping point. It is a circumstantial departure from a medium with no designed exit.
The designer's public regret (Raskin, 2009) is noted as a data point, though the design's continued ubiquity suggests that the regret has not been implemented as a design change at any significant scale.
Infinite scroll produces 47 additional minutes of daily unplanned content consumption by eliminating the stopping points at which users would otherwise choose to exit. It does not improve content. It removes the architecture of exit. The authors recommend mandatory stopping points in all digital feed interfaces, the elimination of infinite scroll from all platforms whose users have not explicitly opted into unbounded consumption, and a formal acknowledgment that 'engagement' and 'benefit' are not synonyms.
Correspondence: kim@of-technology.ac