Mile Long Scrolls
Will McGavin
Picture this. You’ve been working for a little while and feel you’ve earned yourself a little break. You pull out your phone and open Instagram (or TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, you name it) and open a reel from one of the many people you follow. You intended only to watch that video, but you scroll down because… well, who knows? It could’ve been you wanted to see what else would be recommended to you based on that first video, it could be a habit, but it feels as easy as breathing the air around you. There typically isn’t any external factor that suggests you should scroll; you just know you can, so you do. After what feels like 5 or 10 videos, you swipe out only to be greeted by countless other videos on your feed, each with its own bottomless pit of algorithm-driven content for you to consume. You look back at your laptop. It’s been 45 minutes. It’s like you’ve been half-conscious or as if you merely blinked. Further, every social media app allows, or rather encourages this type of activity. It feels that in the brief time we’ve accepted mobile as the most standard method of internet activity, we’ve already seen a radical change in how people engage with mobile interfaces.
It wasn’t that long ago that previous generations were wary about sharing personal information online—such as contact details, banking information, or photos—to protect themselves in a rapidly evolving digital world. To their credit, we took their warnings to heart (even when they sounded a bit patronizing) during the early days of the digital and mobile era. But can you imagine that the most braindead, half-baked, low-hanging fruit of an anti-internet argument was the one lesson that young people skipped? “It’s because they’re always on that damn phone!” “Put the screen down and go outside.” “You’re sitting too close to the TV, you’ll rot your brain” (folks changed that tune as soon as the first iPhone dropped). The betrayal I would’ve felt if future me traveled back in time to see that being too close to the screen too often was the sword we fell on (I suppose I just don’t like admitting they were right). In all honesty, I guess we were kind of asking for it; while we watched out for small-time scammers and less-than-legit media outlets, the folks who made the phones and the apps we used every day spent their time figuring out how to take advantage of our brains so that we’d never leave.
With “mindless scrolling” becoming a household term, we know that all the coolest tech bros are pushing it, but who started it? Look no further than the punchable smile of BJ Fogg, the behavioral scientist from Stanford who showed big tech how to really stick their claws deep into our psyches. Child and adolescent psychologist Richard Freed pointed out in an interview with Vox that the formula for people to be addicted to screen time only requires motivation, ability, and triggers. After that, you sit and wait on a return on your investment; it’s easier and almost more profitable than hiring children to mine for the cobalt you’ll find in the very phones we’ve built our behavioral habits around. Pretty bleak, I know. But what I still don’t understand is why we aren’t talking about this more. Tech-wise, we’ve got plenty of issues to go over. Yet, I only see very little of the conversation directed at the fact that our free time has been completely hijacked as I and others feel a continuously growing compulsion to reach for a pocket screen every chance we get.
So what now? When Freed was interviewed in 2018, he was correct in assuming the trend wouldn’t die, and now it feels as if we’re sitting at the apex of this global behavioral phenomenon (or at least I hope we are). Wagging our fingers at CEOs will not keep them from cashing out on weak points our evolution never planned for. We could individually promise ourselves to slow down our habits and eventually rewire our neural networks back to normal, but addictive behaviors are a bitch. At this point, it’s whichever shoe drops first; we either stop ourselves or wait for regulation that forces tech companies to consider ethical options. But if you really want a hint, I’ve seen enough geriatric congress members ask the people they’re prosecuting how their app works.
