Who invented
infinite scroll?

Aza Raskin invented infinite scroll in 2006. The technique loads new content automatically as a person nears the end of what is on screen, so there is never a last item or a "next page" link¹. Raskin's goal was the classic one of good interface design: remove unnecessary effort.

What turned it from a convenience into a controversy was what it was paired with. From around 2009, social networks replaced chronological lists with personalised, algorithmically ranked feeds designed to maximise time spent. An endless list of content chosen to be engaging, with nothing to tell you that you have reached the end, keeps people going far longer than they plan to.

Aza Raskin creates infinite scroll at Humanized

2006

Raskin co-founds the Center for Humane Technology

2018

EU preliminary finding names TikTok's infinite scroll

6 Feb 2026

New York's limits on addictive feeds for minors take effect

25 Jan 2027

Infinite scroll keeps people scrolling because it removes the moments at which they would otherwise decide to stop. Two well-studied mechanisms work together.

A field study published at the MobileHCI conference in 2023 by Jan Ole Rixen and colleagues at Ulm University tracked 46 people's social media sessions for a week. They described an "inner loop" of scrolling within a session inside an "outer loop" of habitual reopening, and found that most sessions ended because of something outside the app, such as an interruption or a change of context, rather than a cue inside it⁴. In other words, the feed itself rarely gives people a reason to stop.

Raskin has been open about his regret. In interviews he has said that he designed infinite scroll to make browsing easier and did not foresee it becoming a tool for capturing attention, and he has offered rough, admittedly uncertain estimates of how much collective human time it consumes¹. In 2018 he co-founded the Center for Humane Technology with former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris, to argue for technology designed around people's wellbeing rather than their time on screen³.

He is not the only designer to feel that way. Loren Brichter, who created pull-to-refresh for his Twitter app Tweetie, told The Guardian in 2017 that pull-to-refresh is addictive and that he had regrets about it; the article compared the gesture to pulling the lever of a slot machine².

Infinite scroll is a tool that fits some tasks and hurts others. The Nielsen Norman Group's guidance is that it suits feeds of similar, equally weighted items where people browse without a specific goal, and it hurts tasks that need comparison, orientation or a sense of completion⁵.

The business case is not automatic either. In a talk on experimentation, former Etsy engineer Dan McKinley described Etsy's test of infinite scroll on search results: people who saw it clicked fewer results and favourited fewer items, and bought fewer items from search, though overall purchases did not fall⁶. The team concluded it had assumed "more items, faster" was better without testing that assumption.

Regulators have begun to treat endless feeds as a product safety issue. On 6 February 2026 the European Commission issued preliminary findings that TikTok's addictive design, naming infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications and its recommender system, breached the EU's Digital Services Act, and suggested the company might need to change its basic design, for example by disabling infinite scroll and adding effective screen-time breaks⁷. The findings are not final; TikTok can respond, and a confirmed breach could bring a fine of up to 6% of worldwide turnover.

In the United States, New York's SAFE for Kids Act, signed in 2024, bars covered platforms from showing algorithmically personalised "addictive feeds" to users under 18 without parental consent; the state's final rules were released in July 2026 and take effect on 25 January 2027⁸.

You can keep the convenience of continuous loading without the regret. These are design choices product teams control.

• Add natural breaks — after a set number of items, show a clear "you're all caught up" or a summary, as Instagram did in 2018.
• Show progress where it matters — counts, sections or dates give people a sense of where they are.
• Use 'load more' for goal-driven lists — a button keeps the footer reachable and makes continuing a choice.
• Remember position — returning to a list should restore the scroll position, a common failure of infinite lists.
• Give people real controls — time limits and quiet hours that are easy to set and hard to dismiss by accident.
• Measure regret, not only time — ask users whether time in the app felt well spent, and treat that as a product metric.

Designing for engagement and designing for people are not the same; our guide to dark patterns covers where the line is. If your retention depends on users not noticing time pass, a retention and churn audit can find healthier reasons for people to come back.

Raskin's account comes from his interviews; Brichter's from The Guardian's 2017 reporting. Behavioural findings come from the peer-reviewed MobileHCI 2023 study and established reinforcement research; UX guidance from the Nielsen Norman Group; the Etsy result from Dan McKinley's published talk. Regulatory details come from the European Commission's press release and the New York Attorney General's announcement, checked in October 2026; the EU case was still open at that date. Last reviewed October 2026.