How Many Scrolls to The End of Your Instagram Feed?
In actuality, the end of your Instagram feed is the singularity. But how about before reaching that state of madness, we just put an end to infinity scrolling? Sure, websites gain more traffic and keep people on their page longer, but it’s burning our valuable time and we all know we can’t get that back once it’s lost.
I’ve hidden my Twitter app a few times to get myself to stop wasting time on it, and though I’ve finally cut back on screen time, I still feel frustrated at wasting more than five minutes scrolling. Having seen friends scroll endlessly through their Facebook and Instagram feed, I know they aren’t any better for scrolling for more than five minutes or an hour. Problem is that we are genuinely looking for good content, but it comes in spurts and after minutes or hours of scrolling.
So what then? What could be better than the almighty infinity scroll? Well aside from learning how to have some self-control, it could be helpful to give people the option to limit their feed by turning off infinity scrolling. Adding a filter calibration system where you can update who or what things you want to see the most can help weed out your feed so you keep it fresh and engaging. Or perhaps even adding a shuffle button to reorganize your feed so you can see posts you missed the first time around. I know it may sound weird to reach the bottom of Facebook and find a back and forth page option, but then we might less inclined to spend hours scrolling.
I wasn’t the first to strike against the infinity scrolling, as Kate Lucey from InDesign inspired me from her ”It’s time to kill the infinite scroll“ to follow in her tracks and suggest a way out. For connecting us to together and developing online communities, social media has done some massive work on pushing the boundaries of art, careers, and building relationships. So no, all that time on social media wasn’t wasted, but before a decade passes with us having no limit on the posts we can see, we’ll surely be doing more harm than good.
Fortunately, your voice can be heard in the technological field as tech companies do listen to their users. You can, and should, always give feedback on your favorite applications and if you are getting tired of scrolling for hours, a big enough fuss could potentially get developers to change their layout. It might be a while before real change happens, but then again, all these services have come a long way since 2009.
For now, we have to deal with the never-ending pages of content, trying to stay sober and not relapse from all the scrolling. But even if Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter never abolish the infinity scroll, it honestly wouldn’t hurt as much you think to hide those apps and give yourself a breath of fresh air. All things considered, I’m hopeful for the future as tech changes much quicker than we anticipate. And if you really want to see where the future is heading, why not look into getting this one needed vital skill?