How your phone hooks you: dopamine, infinite scroll and the slot machine in your pocket
Infinite scroll: why a feed with no bottom is so hard to leave
Web pages used to end. At the bottom, you clicked "next page", or you left. In 2006, a designer made a page that never ends, and today almost every feed works his way.
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The joke app used to show 20 jokes on a page. At the bottom, a button said "next page". You often stopped there for a second.
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Miva's new version takes the button away. When you get near the bottom, the app quietly adds 20 more jokes, and then 20 more. This is infinite scroll. A designer called Aza Raskin made it in 2006, to save people a click. Today he warns people about it: he has said he did not see how addictive it could be.
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That old button did more than load jokes. It gave you a small moment to decide: more jokes, or sleep? A moment like that is called a stopping cue. An empty plate is one. So is the end of a song.
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With no bottom, that moment never comes. You do not decide to keep going. You just never get a moment to decide to stop.
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Jokes you saw tonight: 312. Times the app asked if you wanted more: 0.
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Every hook so far needs the phone in your hand. So what about the hooks that reach you when you are not even holding it?
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Quick check
Which one gives you more stopping cues: a big bowl of popcorn, or the same popcorn in five small bags?
Show the answer
The five small bags. Each empty bag is a moment to ask yourself if you want more.
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Go further
Two names for what you saw.