
Why Infinite-Scrolling in Mobile Apps is Destroying Content Consumption - kanebennett
http://www.thisiselevator.com/infinitescroll/
======
md224
> After spending hours scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or
> Flipboard our mind feels tired. We feel intellectually bloated, and yet
> completely unsatisfied. Why? Because there is more out there. What if I’m
> missing out on something? What if there is some critical piece of knowledge
> just three flicks of my finger upwards?

The author seems to be essentially describing an addiction, and suggesting
that the compulsions can be ameliorated by placing arbitrary divisions in the
consumption stream. I have to admit, it would be interesting to see if there's
a difference in consumption behavior between infinite scroll schemes and
manual "Next Page" navigation... maybe this has already been studied?

It would probably be overkill to force this on users ("sorry, we're taking
away infinite scroll because some of you couldn't control yourselves") but I
can see it being potentially useful as an _option_ in apps, available for
those who find themselves in need of structure.

Anyway, I'm not entirely convinced it would solve addiction... after all,
cigarettes come in discrete units, and we all know how that turned out.

~~~
1457389
From experience, I can confirm that there is a pretty massive subjective
difference between scrolling through a book vs. reading it in page size
chunks. When I scroll through something, especially if it is dense, I tend to
be continually moving the page so that I keep the sentence I am reading in the
middle of the screen. Since I often scan up and down around a point in the
text to gain context and solidify the meaning this has led to less retention
of knowledge when I scroll through as opposed to page through. There is
probably more to it as well though, because I definitely feel that bloated
feeling mentioned. What's more, I feel it even during short chapters, when the
same amount of text read in paged form would not give me any trouble.

Not sure if this is replicated by others, but this may reveal something
fundamental about how I interpret information in printed form.

~~~
yareally
I think you're not the only one. I feel sort of a sense of anxiety in that I
have to keep scrolling while reading if I'm reading a book without discrete
pages (infinite scrolling also becomes a distraction from the content). If the
layout is reformatted as pages, I know when a page begins and ends and don't
have that feeling any longer.

I'd never willingly implement or recommend infinite scrolling on a website or
mobile app. If a client wants it, I would dissuade them at first with reasons
against it, but if they insisted I would implement it reluctantly with a
fallback to pagination.

~~~
1457389
Yes! There is this headlong sense of just rushing through the text - a
sensation of speed and "flow" that doesn't really impart any understanding.

~~~
yareally
Yep. I understand where the logic comes from to implement them (don't have to
click to see more content), but I think it comes at a cost.

It also helps that my browser implements a "fast forward" mechanism, where I
can go to the next page in pagination without actually clicking a link. Just
have to do a mouse gesture or click the arrow buttons on the mouse. If it were
something more commonly used (unlikely to happen sadly) it would make browsing
paginated content so much easier.

------
ricardobeat
> You reach the end of the feed, and a loading animation appears. More news
> loads. More pictures appear. You scroll again. The loading animation
> appears. More content loads. You continue scrolling

Then your mobile browser starts to lag and _fucking crashes_ because it
exhausted memory. Not to mention breaking the back button and the footer-at-
the-end-of-the-rainbow issue. This thing has to die.

btw, Medium breaks text selection on mobile safari :/

~~~
ben336
that site isn't actually Medium. Just a look-alike

------
pjbrunet
What I hate the most is when I'm using a scrollbar and the infinite scroll
adds more content to the bottom of the page and suddenly the scrollbar jerks
up because I'm now 30% down the page instead of 15% down the page--then it
takes me a minute to find where I was before the infinite scroll event.
Happens to me ALL THE TIME. F-ing annoying. A "load more" button with some
kind of ---------next page--------- line to delineate the new content would be
preferable. The solution is to use the "Page Down" key but that's not always
intuitive.

~~~
cclogg
Oh yeah, this happens to me on Flickr all the time, when holding the scrollbar
(talking desktop browsing here).

------
justindocanto
Before infinite scrolling, there was pagination, which also does not stop the
user from digesting an entire database of content. Some infinity scrolling
even requires a click; so, on those sites, it's the same amount of clicks to
see more content as it is/was with pagination. I dont see infinite-scrolling
being the cause of the problem.

I would suggest sites without filtering is the problem.

To get content that is a fixed length and consumable without overindulging,
there needs to be a fixed amount of content that 1 person can digest.
Otherwise, you just have this database/collection of content that 1 person
cant quite possibly read in one sitting... regardless of if there is infinity
scrolling, pagination, or some other way to navigate.

Newspapers, in a way, curate what they are going to display each day. It's
like a filter in a way. All the content is filtered to show what can fit in X
amount of pages.

Websites with this problem, if they want to solve the problem, need better
filtering. That might not be the only solution, but i feel like it's a major
contender in helping combat the problem of trying to figure out what to
consume amongst limitless content consumption.

------
jar00
Ugh, also I hate infinite scrolling when it crashes and makes me reload the
page. Like on Facebook I would scroll down and down up to posts from months
ago, then it would crash on me, or I accidentally click on some link, which
brings me back all the way to the top when I try to get back on it.

------
mcgwiz
I disagree with this premise, that we necessarily need that "end" state in
content consumption. As many things in the real world have an end state as
(effectively) don't. I can finish a game of Risk, but I will never finish
building relationships with my friends. I can finish a pile of tacos, but I
will never finish seeking an understanding of my existence. I can finish re-
watching all Star Trek series, but I cannot finish learning about the opinions
and ideas of others.

Some activities just go on forever. We learn that certain activities have an
end and others don't. The ones that don't we give attention to in a manner
proportionate to their importance. In representing content streams as
infinite, publishers are simply mimicking the interminable reality of that
activity. Future generations will never have learned that there's a daily
endpoint to what you can know about your friend's lives, current events, etc.
What a silly proposition!

I (wildly) speculate the feeling that an end state is needed springs from
weakness/inability in moderating one's impulses. The end state then is really
just a crutch to force one to stop some obsessive activity.

[Edit: removed disparagement of Star Trek DS9.]

~~~
guspe
Yeah, this was more or less my reaction to this article too. Much before
infinite scrolling in apps, there were libraries so overwhelming in sheer
volume of content that lead Borges to conceive the universe in the form of
"The Library of Babel".

Simply putting a stop to scrolling will not end the feeling of unsatisfaction,
it will not end the fear of missing out. Infinite scrolling is the
consequence, not the cause of our dissatisfaction.

------
jamesk_au
The author postulates that infinite content scrolling in mobile apps causes
"dissatisfaction" and "intellectual bloat" for the user, and concludes that
developers should limit content.

An alternative explanation might focus on when and how discipline and self-
restraint should be exercised, the ways in which content can be curated, or
how and why one might take steps to learn about such things.

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
As developer we tend to think it's "never the fault of the user". We have to
design around human proclivities or else we would be neurologists or
something. I agree with the article that this is a problem that could be
solved and should be solved.

Unfortunately I think the easiest answer is gamification, sure to create much
gnashing of teeth.

------
MRSallee
I think there are some UX issues with infinite scroll, and probably some
cognitive benefit to giving users a predictable end to use of a product, but I
don't think many people ever completed a newspaper every day. To me, a daily
copy of the Times is just as infinite as my Twitter feed.

~~~
r0h1n
I disagree. While nobody may read every single article in a paper, we can
comfortably scan all of it and decide which ones are worth reading. That is
what the author is referring to, not the act of literally reading everything
in your infinite TL...which is what you allude to by saying "I don't think
many people ever completed a newspaper every day."

~~~
MRSallee
I'll be honest, I've never been a newspaper guy, but do people really go
through them front to back or just scan the front page and jump to the section
(sports, movie show times, etc.) they're specifically interested in?

~~~
BSousa
For me and my wife (before our son was born, of course!) we usually read about
50% of the daily newspaper (Publico) and just about 100% of the weekly one
(Expresso).

We usually would take the newspaper to the beach or a cafe, spend a few hours
there just reading the paper (trading sections every so often) and chatting a
bit about what we were reading. It was as nice ritual.

------
userbinator
I don't like infinite scrolling either because there is seemingly no end, and
no "landmarks" like page numbers that you can refer to to see how far you've
gone.

~~~
randomdata
They do not need to be mutually exclusive. A mobile app I maintain, for
instance, appends each page as you scroll, but it also displays the page
number of the content you are seeing and allows you to jump to specific pages.

~~~
babby
Exactly. Additionally, it's very easy to implement a single-page-app-esque
page button that simply hides one page to make room for another, then allows
you to return to that page without loading any more data. Considering how
rediculously easy that would be, I'd personally build it in as an option. I do
realize though that it's trendy these days to simply omit all options and
preferences in favor of keeping it simple.

------
da_n
I recently came across another issue with infinite scrolling, no access to a
websites footer. I found myself annoyed by the issue when was trying to get
the RSS feed from some websites which infinite scrolling on their blog posts.
The infinite loading of the site actively prevented me from ever seeing the
footer, which is where the RSS feed URL was, so I could not subscribe on my
mobile (I knew it was in the footer as I could see it on desktop layout).
Coupled with the equally annoying no-zoom meta tag I had no easy way to get
the URL. Absolutely braindead.

------
garthdog
[http://xkcd.com/1309/](http://xkcd.com/1309/)

------
aufreak3
What the OP is saying is that Twitter, Facebook, etc. have turned into soap
operas.

Nothing wrong with a "never ending story" and there's a considerable clientele
for that in older media too. The LoTR trilogies also have that similar feeling
for me - I'm left with a bit of a craving after watching just one.

What is, perhaps, new is the immediacy of the never-endingness. One phone-
screenful is all you get at a time.

------
7952
There are several ways of viewing information, and it would be better if users
actually had the choice. This is common in desktop apps like Itunes, or even a
file manager where you are given gallery, detail view, scrolling, thumbnails
etc.

------
JacobAldridge
_" A finite list of news. An Instagram feed that can be finished. A Twitter
feed that ends."_

Isn't this confusing source and outcome? Even if your app (or website) adds an
'end' point, it would only be artificial. The news never ends. Instagram and
Twitter never sleep. If you can't be your own gatekeeper (eg, by following a
very small number of users on Twitter) then I doubt an artificial 'end' point
from another gatekeeper will help you. Rather, I suspect, you'll simply add
more apps to your daily reading list - an infinite number of finite apps to
keep the infinite consumption option available.

~~~
Justsignedup
The author got it backwards. Infinite scrolling of HISTORY is not a problem.
Twitter feeds end at the TOP, not the bottom. You scroll down endlessly
because you are bored.

------
ebauch
the best is when you cannot get to to footer anymore because of infinite
scrolling...that includes FB too...

~~~
isnotchicago
The column to the right of your feed (where birthdays and events show up) also
includes the same links as the footer. Click "More" to get to the Developers
page, etc.

------
JetSpiegel
"There is no reason why Facebook, Instagram or Twitter can’t algorithmically
determine which, say 20 posts are important to us, and give the option to only
view those."

What could possibly go wrong?

~~~
minimaxir
Facebook actually does that right now via EdgeRank. (unlike Twitter and
Instagram which is strict chronological)

The results are not good.

~~~
aestra
I find it doesn't really do this on the mobile site.

------
KaoruAoiShiho
Content limited digests are actually very popular.
[http://sidebar.io/2014/1/4](http://sidebar.io/2014/1/4) is one example but
there are many many. It would be interesting to see how competitive they would
be against the big mobile apps but at the very least it's an existing,
confirmed, niche.

------
nilkn
Many of the complaints here can be solved via a good implementation of
infinite scrolling.

The URL should auto-update to reflect the current state of the content that
has been loaded onto the page (the only exceptions are when the content is
highly dynamic and pagination becomes somewhat meaningless over even short
time intervals).

Either manual invocation of the scrolling should be necessary (so access to
the site footer is not restricted) or else the site footer should be re-
designed so it is still accessible (Twitter, for instance, just puts an
information box on the left with links that would normally be in the footer).

It is also very important that clicking on a link on the page and then going
back should restore the full state of the page, including scrolling position,
at least to the greatest extent possible.

Ideally a visual separator should be inserted between different pages of
content. This helps the user maintain context of where they are in the content
stream.

~~~
JohnTHaller
Or, it could just be different pages of content and the back button actually
works in every instance and the scrolling position is automatically (and
accurately) preserved by the browser. As opposed to infinite scroll with
updating URLs that inserts 10 different items in your browser history,
breaking proper back button functionality to fit the view of what a designer
thinks are all the pages you visited while you, as a user, just scrolled a
single page and think the back button should take you back to the site you
just came from.

~~~
nilkn
You're describing poor implementations of infinite scrolling. Like I
mentioned, in most cases it's possible to avoid all the issues you just
described. Whether this is done or not depends really on how much effort the
programmer wants to put into it. Also, just to be clear, this:

> As opposed to infinite scroll with updating URLs that inserts 10 different
> items in your browser history

is avoided with correct usage of the HTML5 history API. You can update the URL
without inserting a bunch of extra pages into the browser's history.

~~~
JohnTHaller
I don't think I've ever seen an infinite scroll website implemented correctly.
Nor have I ever seen one that works well on my phone. Which is probably why I
generally never go back to infinite scroll websites aside from the social
media biggies.

------
mschuster91
What's worse, you're not even able to "replay" a whole night in a moderate
Twitter feed.

Simply put, I follow ~30 medium-activity accounts, I go to bed and when I wake
up, I can't reach the same point in the timeline again as over 800 tweets have
been posted.

Please, for heavens sake, allow the addicted to read their _whole_ timeline.
Thanks.

~~~
triangleman83
I would have the same problem and then prune my twitter follows down to
something more manageable. Then I would slowly build up again and the same
problem would occur. Now I just switched on mobile notifications for the
follows who I really want to read everything they post, which has really just
created another, smaller twitter feed.

What we really need is for the app to keep track of where you left off, cull
the new posts into a separate page, giving you something easier to work with
and catch up.

------
sanityinc
Infinite scrolling (in a desktop browser) was why I stopped using Prismatic.
The endlessness makes reading the news an uncomfortable, subtly stressful
experience.

There's an expectation that curated content should be a high-quality subset of
the whole internet, and providing an endless stream of content undermines that
expectation.

------
mcv
> That hollow sense of dissatisfaction needs to be replaced by the sense of
> achievement which can only be found by finishing something. By reaching the
> end.

Oh man, this is giving me a great idea! Content consumption needs to be
_gamified_! Score points for actually reading an entire article. I could use
something like that.

------
alkonaut
Your facebook and twitter feeds aren't infinite, you subscribe to a limited
number of other users. All the twitter clients that don't suck will show you
your twitter feed starting from where you left off. When reading, you scroll
towards the most recent tweeets, which is where your feed ends.

Obviously, as it is a live feed, it doesn't "end", but if your feed doesn't
grow faster than you consume it, you will complete reading it in the same
sense you complete reading your email inbox. It's a personal preference if you
treat twitter like an email inbox (read everything) or like daytime
tv/elevator music (a never ending stream of noise).

If you start browsing random tags on flickr, or randomly stumble through
global twitter feeds of infinite depth, that is no difference from the streams
of tv or radio that existed before too.

------
p01926
So a satisfying green screen appears and the user congratulates herself -- she
has finished reading all the tweets, all the news. But that's not possible, is
it? Some tasks don't have a satisfying end. So introducing an arbitrarily
created one just calls the whole task's meaning into question.

This idea was initially used well in Mailbox as some people do finish triaging
their email. But even there completion congratulation had its problems. It was
always quicker to leave mail in the inbox if it was needed later. That meant
processing it just for the sake of 'completion' wasted time, and ruined the
associated sense of satisfaction.

All that's not to say infinite scrolling is always perfect UX. If done without
some signposts, or other way for the user to get oriented, infinite scroll can
be terrible -- like infinite pagination.

------
Aqueous
Well, it's not going to end. Right? I think the answer is we just have to know
when to shut it off. Infinite scroll is a gift because we are going to have to
rely on ourselves to know when to stop. Which could be a useful skill, given
the oceans of information we haven't even seen yet.

------
alkonaut
Yeah because in the past when I consumed media I used to listen to the radio
until it went quiet.

------
avighnay
'scroll sickness'

noun 1\. nausea caused by endless web content, esp. by Facebook, Flickr,
Mobile Apps, News Feeds

2\. headache caused by intellectual bloat on consumption of too much content

3\. compulsive behavior caused by intense boredom and brain freeze

------
pessimizer
>After spending hours scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or
Flipboard our mind feels tired. We feel intellectually bloated, and yet
completely unsatisfied.

Standard reaction to an excess of intellectual carbs. Paginating that crap
would be like individually wrapping each slice of that cake you bought for
yourself - a misguided strategy to slow yourself down that you'll blow right
through when you're sugar-crazy.

These services have no end because they have very little structured content at
all.

------
JohnTHaller
You can also add that it's impossible to reach the site's footer where we
expect to find the more detailed navigation elements of a site (like easy
access to Contact, About, etc) and that it breaks the back button when
designers make up their mind that you just scrolled through 10 'pages' on
their site and updated the URL 10 times, so when you click back to escape
their overloaded site to the site you came from, you have to click it 10 times
to get there.

~~~
chinpokomon
Reaching the footer could be solved by floating the footer and scrolling the
text from behind it. This of course causes problems with having less space
onscreen for the content you probably care about, but it is solvable.

Perhaps it could be designed to rise into view if you move the mouse cursor to
the bottom of the screen, or in mobile application, perhaps it is visible when
scrolling but after a predetermined timeout, it lowers out of view.

Another possibility would be for it to show when you scroll back in the list,
like the address bar does with Chrome on Android. It is a little less
discoverable, especially since the direction the footer would move is counter-
intuitive to the scrolling movement, but once that behavior is seen the first
time, I'm willing to bet that it is easily recognized and understood how to
bring it up again in the future.

This isn't really a problem with infinite scrolling, but it may be a problem
with the implementation.

------
zmeden
Why adapt our apps and tools to fit our old mental functioning where
information was scarce, instead of evolving to the reality where there is an
excess of available information?

------
cornellwright
There are other issues with infinite scrolling (such as not being able to re-
find your place, etc), however dissatisfaction is not one I experience. Maybe
it's because I don't usually finish things for the sake of finishing. I'm more
inclined to keep reading something until I get bored or want to do something
else. I usually don't make it to the bottom of the front page of Hacker News
or all the way through about 3/4 of news articles.

------
lewispb
I think it's interesting Yahoo are attempting to address this with their News
Digest app, following their acquisition of Summly. Founder Nick D'Aloisio said
in a recent interview (can't find the link right now) that development of News
Digest was lead by the idea that a physical newspaper or magazine has a very
clear beginning and end, and that by reaching the end the reader could feel
satisfaction.

------
ctrl
This post seems more based on emotion than anything factual or statistics.

Real Talk, when infinite scrolling is bad:

1)When it moves your page location up when loading more.

2)When it loses your location because you clicked on a link.

when infinite scrolling is good:

1) Not clicking load more or next.

Also, Facebook already tries to show you what's important and it already gets
users panties in a bunch because they don't understand edgerank.

------
pwrfid
I do agree with the author but As others pointed out the algos currently are
not that good to find the top10/20 stories. And the question remains that if
you limit users to 20, would they feel dissatisfied that there must be more
and that they are missing out?

So is the onus on the mobile developer to solve or for the user to adjust
their behavior?

------
na85
>This problem of endless dissatisfaction needs to be solved

Hmmm, I disagree. This seems like a solution in search of a problem. Adding
pageloads by removing infinite scroll seems to me to be a clever way of
putting more ads in, something I'm 100% against.

~~~
madeofpalk
Yahoo's News Digest app has solved this so-called problem by only publishing
10 articles twice a day

[http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/7/5284300/yahoos-sleek-
news-d...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/7/5284300/yahoos-sleek-news-digest-
app-swims-against-the-stream)

------
micah63
That is why I love [http://getpocket.com](http://getpocket.com). Collect
articles you are interested in, read them in your down time, when you are
done, hit the check mark and.... satisfaction, go to bed.

------
kanebennett
Really appreciate the commentary HN. I'm just getting started with Elevator
(apologies for the still-in-progress site with a terrible Wordpress theme).
Follow @thisiselevator for more.

~~~
xux
Very nice use of Medium theme...

------
ttty
[http://danwin.com/2013/01/infinite-scroll-fail-
etsy/](http://danwin.com/2013/01/infinite-scroll-fail-etsy/)

------
smrtinsert
There is no question infinite scrolling is a horribly stupid, resource
intensive, and confusing ui. It's just dumb feature copying that made it so
popular.

------
ishener
The one thing that never stops boggle our minds is the infinite. Nobody wants
finite things, and I don't believe finite things are genuinely good for us.

~~~
alan_cx
An infinite football match might get a tad tedious. An infinite movie? Hmmm, I
feel like I have actually seen a few of those. A couple of books I've read
also felt like that. Besides,if the football match was infinite, I'd never get
to read the book. And if I did, I'd only get to read one book. What if its
rubbish? Im stuck with it. Sex? Infinite sex? Im getting on now, Im not sure
I'd survive that. How much space would there be if we had infinite life? Not
just humans, but all the animals... and plants.

No, I think I like lots of things to be finite.

------
mwnz
A little sensationalist. Choose the correct interaction pattern for the
content you are presenting.

------
zem
excellent article on the topic:
[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/2013-t...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/2013-the-
year-the-stream-crested/282202/)

------
ForHackernews
[http://xkcd.com/1309/](http://xkcd.com/1309/)

------
DominikR
Facebook newsfeed isn't infinite. It stops after ~150 posts.

