The Infinite Feed
The feed has no bottom, and that is the point. This study examines how infinite-scroll design reshapes the way people allocate attention, form habits, and remember what they saw — and what that means for anything trying to be remembered inside it.
Endlessness flattens memory
With no natural stopping points, sessions blurred into single events. Participants recalled the feeling of a session vividly and almost nothing inside it. Without edges, content has no handle for memory to grab.
Variable reward drives the loop
The feed pays out unpredictably, and unpredictability is what sustains it. People did not scroll because the last thing was good; they scrolled because the next thing might be. Content competes not with other content but with the possibility of it.
Exit moments are designable
Content that provided a sense of completion — a resolved story, a clear end — was remembered more and followed less. Paradoxically, giving people an ending made them more likely to return than trapping them did.