BRUSSELS — Doom scrolling is doomed, if the EU gets its way.
The European Commission is for the first time tackling the addictiveness of social media in a fight against TikTok that may set new design standards for the world’s most popular apps.
A weird thing to flex on tbh but i do miss normal pagination. Getting back to your spot with infinite scroll sucks.
Infinite scrolling stays my least favorite interface trend. What’s wrong with the pages? I’m very glad it would be changed.
How about “Webpage with ‘about us’ and other informing links converted to infinite scrolling, leaving those links at the end of infinity”?
I have chronic pain and want to limit clicking “Next” all the time
I’m sorry it’s painful for you! Then would be great to have an option to choose between scrolling and page views.
All of us have to endure so you can be pleased, of course, milord!
Endure what exactly? The convenience of not having to click next? Laughable.
Uhm hello? Being subjected to dark patterns? Deceptive user interface design? Educate yourselves?
Infinite scrolling is not a dark pattern and also not deceptive in any way. A dark pattern is something like amazon asking you four times in different wording and different user interface if you would really like to cancel the service.
Of course king you are right you’ve changed my mind, I’m so lucky that I’ve found the only remaining expert in human in dark patterns. You should join the European commissions, all of those posers saying tiktok is addictive they’re just dumdum, there’s no such thing as an addictive app! All of those meta employees calling the app a drug they’re just doing so affectionately!
My infinite scrolling ebook reader is now also addictive and dangerous? Wtf are you on about, i’m talking about this specific feature not addicting algorithms.
Reading this on Jerboa with infinite scrolling 😱
IIRC Dessalines (Lemmy and Jerboa frontend dev) once said to regret adding infinite scrolling, and the only reason he didn’t remove the feature is because people would rage. So odds are Jerboa will be one of the first to comply.
And… frankly? As much as I criticise Lemmy devs, I think Dessalines is right in this one.
Voyager (like Apollo before it) has the option to disable infinite scrolling, I won’t use a client without it
I am so braindead I can’t even imagine how it would work without endless scrolling?
X amount of posts before it stops scrolling. Then you’d have a classic “next page” button like we used to.
Basically you add a conscious choice to keep going, and creating a much more natural stopping point.
Pagination
You reach the bottom of the feed and have to click something to load another page or reload the forum
But why? I don’t mind infinite scrolling here. And an option to opt in/out and everybody’s happy I suppose.
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I see how it can create problems for some, but OTOH I also don’t want some bureocrats tell me what’s good for me. I bet those are the same bunch that brought us infinite cookie warnings clicking.
Nah, cookie banners are a malicious compliance tactic adopted by the advertising industry after they got told they can’t surveil the whole of the internet without consent.
The bureaucrats are actually hard at work to get rid of cookie banners in the very near future, making it obligatory to follow an in browser setting. You click decline once on install, and that’s it is the plan.
I also don’t want some [bureaucrats] tell me what’s good for me.
These same policy wonks tell you to wear a seat belt because that’s (proven) good for you; as is not smoking. They tell everyone ELSE not to speed because those wonks know everyone else is a terrible driver, and that’s better for you. These are the types who maintain building code and human rights and legal process because - yep - it’s better for you.
There’s a trend, here. I get that we sometimes feel opposition to things, but when there is science behind it - sit DOWN, RFKjr and the rest of you whackadoos - it’s usually good to go with it.
Because it’s a piece of addictive design. Here in Lemmy it’s fairly isolated, so not a big deal; but in larger and corporate platforms, it’s coupled with even more addictive design, in a way that you’re basically “stuck”.
The website uses pages instead of infinite scrolling. I guess that’s compliant then.
Doesn’t look like this extends beyond TikTok, or at least mainstream social media as a whole.
Infinite scroll itself isn’t really a problem. It’s just one of the many tools used to keep users engaged on these platforms specifically by removing an interruption from the experience, but isn’t sufficient on its own to create that unhealthy behavior. It’s also used in healthier ways, like search results, chat logs, and so on.
The EU attempting to rein in these platforms’ control over its users will be interesting to watch. There are decades of research these companies have done on user psychology to maximize their capture of the user’s attention. Forcing them not to use all the tools they developed might result in people breaking out of the cycle of endlessly scrolling. Or it might just annoy users. I don’t know which will happen.
I think the thought is, it’s not a bad thing if you get annoyed after scrolling through 100 of something and having to click next. It’s like that lady that comes up on TikTok and says why the fuck are you still scrolling? Touch grass, maybe.
I basically agree with you. You can’t really ban dark patterns even though we all agree they suck. Legislature is the worst group of people to design UX.
You can’t really ban dark patterns even though we all agree they suck.
I think the point I was getting at was that a lot of things dark patterns do are individually things that have the potential for good or bad. Infinite scroll is one example. There’s also modals, sale banners, and so on.
What makes a dark pattern dark isn’t the specific, individual tools at use. It’s the sum of those, plus the intent.
It’s also used in healthier ways, like search results, chat logs, and so on.
That’s an excellent point. Viewing a log file over the web, particularly when it’s still growing, absolutely needs infinite scrolling. The Old Way is UX poison.
Is RedHat the company in on this? Is it because they can’t figure out how to scroll text well in their AAP/Tower/whatever platform and are annoyed with people chanting YOU HAD ONE JOB at them? (no need to look it up – that entire Tower product and the tech behind it would be hot garbage 20 years ago and is hot garbage now, so I’m just dunking on them)
I don’t don’t think this is useful at all, if it only results in a next button occasionally popping up.
It provides a natural stopping point, which as another user explained requires a conscious effort to continue rather than infinite scrolling which requires a conscious effort to stop.
It doesn’t sound like much, but it can be those little things that make the difference. A little bit less on one side of the scale, and a little bit more on another.
I know I find myself scrolling for way longer than I intended, and when I look back and realize how much I scrolled it always seems to surprise me. Sometimes I tell myself I’m about to stop, but I just keep going. I see another headline at the bottom of the screen and have to click on it. After that I see another one below it, etc. Sometimes I have to scroll so the screen ends on one post, and I won’t let it show the one below it, cause otherwise I might never stop.
People whose minds are already wired for addiction can struggle with this. Just like with beer. “One felt good, so twelve must feel twelve times as good.” It’s a subconscious process, but it can feel like a vortex and be really hard to escape.
Pagination would take away that “mindless” aspect, and for instance I could see when I reach page 10 or whatever and decide that’s far enough. Or I could hop on and just scroll one page. Or I could scroll a few pages and then say “Okay at the bottom of this page I’m stopping.” It’s much easier that way for people who struggle with it.
@wonderingwanderer @Sina yes, I liked things more when pagination was the default, for the same reason. I turn pagination back on where it’s an option and use mods to re introduce where it is not. Portion control is very important for enjoying all things. I love ice cream but I would be very ill with an infinitely refilling bowl. A set amount suits me much better.
I love ice cream but I would be very ill with an infinitely refilling bowl.
That’s a really good analogy
@wonderingwanderer thanks! I will admit to being inspired by one of Brian Wansink’s food psychology experiments where it was demonstrated that even people who tend to have a better sense of when they’re full will still eat more soup than they planned to or think they did if their bowl is secretly hooked up to a siphon that refills the bowl with more soup. He’s a bit discredited for self plagiarism but mindless eating, the book he wrote about the food psychology experiments he ran, has a lot of good concepts that likely hold up on repetition if we can incentivize review a bit better instead of novel breakthroughs constantly.
You totally nailed it! This is a great and thoughtful comment, and I appreciate the effort you put into it to help educate others. :)
Of course such measures are much simpler than fixing the current education system, which is the root cause of lack of critical thinking and self-control.
Highly educated people can be addicted to gambling tactics too
What-about-ism.
Why should people looking at social media addiction look at the education system?
In what world is it a choice between the two?
such measures are much simpler than fixing the current education system
it’s harm reduction while we also work to build a tolerance to the drug … through learning and reasoning.
The problems are interconnected and should both be addressed. If this is a sore spot for you then you might want to consider your own scrolling habits…
The EU does not oversee education, it’s usually a member state or even lower level responsibility.
Yes, it could be better. But its also parents who need to get their shit together. I know so many who park their kids in front of tablet, phone or pc - not for a breather or a short distraction, but as the standard way to entertain kids.
Because they fear that the kids might be bored. But boredom is good, it gets creative juices flowing. However, you have to be hard and tell nagging kids no, and that is hard
If kids have been inducted to immediately get a phone whenever they whine a bit, there is not much school can do.
That’s still a separate issue. Infinite scroll is scarcely ever used in a good way, and is almost always used to encourage addictive behavior; something which affects adults just as much as children. Even on the rare occasion that it isn’t being implemented as an engagement tool, it still often ends up being one anyway. It’s a dark pattern and little else.
As far as I’m concerned, banning infinite scroll could easily be a very good thing, and I’m in favor.
100%, Infinity scroll needs to go.
Infinite scroll is scarcely ever used in a good way
Just to clarify, we’re only talking about mainstream social media here, right? Those are the only platforms they’re considering here, and more specifically, only TikTok right now.
“Infinite scroll” is also how you can scroll up in your chat log and see more messages. It’s how you can open logs for a VM online and see logs going further and further back. It’s how you can search for a video on YouTube and keep scrolling down (past the inevitable pile of shit) until you find it.
On social media platforms, and in particular not in a chat interface, it can be toxic.
Just to clarify, we’re only talking about mainstream social media here, right?
Yes, most discussions of infinite scroll center around this use, and it’s what this topic’s focused on. I’m aware that other uses exist, but frankly I’m not terribly worried about that. Pagination is a perfectly viable alternative for most every case I can think of that infinite scroll is used in, especially when paired with a half-decent search system, so even if a clumsy blanket ban were applied I think we’d be fine.
Thank you for sharing this!
sad John Perry Barlow noises
So, sans much context (short of a quick read on Wikipedia on the Telecommunications Act of 1996), this honestly looks like naive libertarianism, and reads like an obnoxious manifesto. Feels appropriate for the attitude of the 90s, I suppose – from what I know, there was a lot more belief in the internet as a frontier of freedom and justice, then – but it’s not so fitting these days. Many of the internet’s ills have spawned from an environment of shockingly little regulation, and I’d argue the all-too-common “move fast and break things” paradigm devolved into existence from that, too. Yet this appears to be rebuffing regulation writ large, in some misguided belief that the internet was perfectly fine how it was, would continue to be so forever, and that no positive government intervention was possible — rather than the reality that the internet was flawed, at risk, and that good law was possible if only a state had been willing to pursue such a thing. 1
Which isn’t to say that a low- or even zero-regulation environment can’t work. But it needs specific alternatives; you can’t just not fix something. And infinite scroll is definitely a something, here. It absolutely contributes to creating an addictive environment while rarely being used for anything good. Personally, even if this letter had aged well, I don’t think this would be an appropriate time to reference it.
1. Some of which was passed in the very law this article so hates! Section 230 comes from the TCA!
libertarianism
I’m sorry to say you lost me at this word, so super-charged that my brain now filters the content and speaker.
But I came really to say: Dude. FOOTNOTES?!? We can do that here? Beautiful example; Legend. Thanks for showing me how.
Were it only that we didn’t need to put carets on both sides of every word for one, haha! Ah well, Lemmy issue.
Wow, look: crazies start to address actual problems instead of banning children and forcing IDs. What happened? Some important fascist died?
