The science and psychology of endless scrolling

Why is endless scrolling so hard to stop?

It helps to think of three layers working together. The design layer is how the app is built: what loads next, how little effort it takes, whether there is ever an end. The attention layer is how human brains prioritise information, especially threats. And the mood layer is what we bring to the phone: boredom, tiredness, worry or loneliness. Any one layer on its own is manageable. Together, they create a loop.

What is a “variable reward”, and why does it keep us scrolling?

Behavioural psychology has long distinguished between rewards that arrive predictably and rewards that arrive on an unpredictable schedule. When you can’t know which action will pay off, you tend to keep trying, because the next one just might. This is the logic behind the familiar comparison between feeds and slot machines.

A feed is a near-perfect variable reward machine. Each swipe is effortless, and the result could be a friend’s news, a joke, a useful tip or a shocking headline. Researchers who analysed popular social media apps and freemium games identified a set of design elements that can prolong use, from endless content to social feedback, and linked each to established psychological and economic theories (Montag et al., 2019).

How does infinite scroll remove our stopping cues?

Older media came with natural endings: the last page of a newspaper, the end of an episode, the bottom of a web page where you had to click “next”. Each ending was a small decision point. Infinite scroll loads new content before you reach the bottom, so the decision never arrives. Autoplay in short-video apps goes further: you don’t even need to choose the next item.

A one-week field study of 46 people examined how infinite scrolling sessions end. Most of the reasons people gave for leaving had nothing to do with the app; they came from the surrounding context, such as another person, a task or a change of place. The researchers described two loops: an inner loop within a session and an outer, habitual loop that brings people back (Rixen et al., 2023).

This has a practical implication, explored in healthy screen-time habits: if the app won’t give you a stopping point, you can build one in yourself, with a timer, a location rule or a set routine.

Why does bad news grab our attention more than good news?

Psychologists call it negativity bias. Across many areas of life, bad events, feedback and information tend to have a stronger effect on us than equivalent good ones (Baumeister et al., 2001). Negative things are often more salient, more potent and harder to ignore (Rozin & Royzman, 2001). From an evolutionary point of view, missing a threat was usually costlier than missing a pleasant surprise, though that explanation is itself a theory.

This bias shows up in how people respond to news. In an experiment across 17 countries on six continents, people on average were more physiologically activated by negative news videos than by positive ones. The authors also found large differences between individuals: some people respond strongly to positive news too (Soroka et al., 2019).

That study analysed tens of thousands of controlled headline experiments, which makes it stronger evidence than a simple survey. Put negativity bias together with a feed that optimises for what people click, and it’s easy to see how a session can tilt towards “doom” without anyone intending it.

What does research say about scrolling and wellbeing?

This is where careful reading matters most. The table summarises key studies, what they found and, just as important, what they can’t tell us.

The American Psychological Association’s 2023 health advisory on adolescents sums up the state of the field: using social media is not inherently beneficial or harmful, its effects depend on the person and on what they see and do, and findings that suggest causal associations are rare (APA, 2023).

Correlation or causation: what can these studies actually prove?

When a survey finds that people who doomscroll more also report more anxiety, there are at least three possible explanations:

1. Scrolling causes distress: a stream of negative content wears people down.
2. Distress causes scrolling: anxious people search for information to feel more in control.
3. Something else causes both: poor sleep, loneliness or a stressful life event could increase both scrolling and distress.

Most doomscrolling research to date is cross-sectional (a single snapshot), so it can’t separate these. Randomised experiments, in which some people are asked to cut back and others are not, get closer to cause and effect. The two in our table both found wellbeing benefits from reducing use (Hunt et al., 2018) (Allcott et al., 2020), but each covered a specific platform, population and time, and the Facebook study also found people knew less about the news afterwards. Cutting back has trade-offs, and results may differ for Reels or for readers in India.

Do Reels and Shorts really shrink your attention span?

You have probably seen headlines about “brain rot”. The best summary evidence so far is a 2025 meta-analysis in Psychological Bulletin. Across 71 studies, heavier short-form video use was associated with poorer cognition, with the strongest associations for attention and inhibitory control (the ability to resist an impulse). Associations with mental health were weaker, and there was no association with body image or self-esteem (Nguyen et al., 2025).

So what should we take from the science?

• Feeling pulled to keep scrolling is a predictable response to how feeds work and how attention works. It is not a personal failing.
• The strongest, most consistent findings concern sleep, attention and distress, but most are associations.
• Average effects of “screen time” are often small; what you view and how you feel afterwards matter more than minutes alone.
• Small experiments suggest that cutting back can help some people feel better, with trade-offs.
• Because the app rarely provides a stopping point, building one in yourself is one of the most practical responses.

For what to do next, see healthy screen-time habits. To understand why some content spreads so quickly in the first place, read how social media trends spread.