Infinite scrolling is everywhere. It’s part of how social networks feed you content, and how YouTube and Google serve you search results. While some think it’s a good idea, most designers advise against it.

“One of my lessons from infinite scroll: that optimizing something for ease-of-use does not mean best for the user or humanity.”

— said Aza Raskin, who invented the concept of infinite scroll in 2006. He also said that his own creation wastes about 200,000 human lifetimes per day.

Recently, Raskin was featured in Netflix’s The Social Dilemma. The documentary discusses how social media companies try to tweak their algorithms to squeeze out more engagement from their users.

While infinite scrolling is not generating endless engagement in itself, it’s a powerful concept, as best illustrated by the evolution of Instagram.

#instagram #technology #society #social-media #design #machine-learning