Why do you keep scrolling? The Psychology behind Social Media

You intend to open Instagram for “just a second”, and suddenly, you’ve fallen headfirst into 45 minutes of doomscrolling. I’m sure I’m not the only one who deals with this daily. However, I don’t believe, and neither does science, that this is on us, social media users.

Social media are designed to attract and keep our attention. The platforms aren’t magically keeping us there. They use simple, but compounding, psychological tricks and clever design to maintain engagement. If you understand the mechanisms behind social media, you are all the more likely to try at least to break free of its addictive design.

Social media is built for attention.

If you’d have asked me fifteen years ago, I could never have predicted social media would turn out like this. I was merrily scrolling through Facebook and Netlog, sharing what I had had for dinner as a 13-year-old. However, since their inception, companies like Meta and Google have been thinking about how to design these platforms so they become hard to leave. In the beginning, MySpace, Facebook, and the Benelux’ Netlog became important parts of our daily lives, especially for teenagers: we shared our thoughts, chatted away with friends after school, and even showed our creative sides with new pictures or profile designs. Somewhat later, our parents discovered the platform and started sharing opinions on the latest news, wishing distant relatives happy birthday, or creating events for the neighborhood barbecue.

Pretty soon, however, the flipside of the platforms’ design became apparent: teenagers being obsessed with the MySpace top 8, parents unable to connect with kids who were stuck behind a computer or phone. This wasn’t the kids' fault: they were early in suffering from ‘problematic social media use’, which is when you experience a lack of control over your use, and it influences your daily life negatively in some way. This sounds all too similar to an addiction to nicotine or alcohol, but social media in itself is not addictive. Its design features, however, can be. Recent studies show social media addiction is never due to a single factor, but rather the cumulation of personal risk factors, the social environment of a person, and, always returning in studies, the design of the platform.

Our brain loves dopamine.

What design features are so addictive? Well, the most important one is serendipity. Social media’s algorithms are designed to provide you with enjoyable content. However, anyone scrolling Instagram or TikTok today can tell you that you’re not consistently shown perfectly great content all the time. Why is that? Because our brain enjoys an intermittent, serendipitous reward so much more than a certain one. It’s the same concept that’s behind a slot machine: you pull the lever, and you could win. The anticipation of winning is part of the fun. In terms of social media, this is not as conscious an experience, but the same mechanisms are firing in your brain when you scroll to the next video.

Even when you are actively using social media, which means creating content yourself, you’re dealing with this dopamine-inducing design. Every time you open the app, you might see a new notification that someone liked your post or left a comment. Of course, that would make you happy! Many people think this is where the dopamine comes in, as a “happiness hormone”, but actually, dopamine is related to psychological constructs like motivation, anticipation, and striving to get potential rewards. Dopamine makes us TRY for things that COULD make us happy, but it does not MAKE us happy. That would be the role of neurotransmitters like endorphins, oxytocin, serotonin, and many others.

Infinite scroll as a no-brake zone

On top of our serendipitous algorithm, we are also kept on the platform by removing any natural stopping points. Every time you watch a show or read a book, when the chapter ends, or the episode credits roll, you get a moment to pause and think. Social media has taken this option away entirely, by having no end, ever. Infinite scroll makes it impossible to pause naturally, putting all the pressure on our own willpower and presence of mind to realize how long we have been going.

This lack of “brake” is what makes it difficult to change your behavior. Behavior change scientists have known for years that behaviors can only switch if you have a moment to decide to do so. Without such moments, we revert to our automatic thinking system and keep executing the current behavior. Not necessarily because we’re choosing to, but because it is the current status quo. And just like that, you’ve created a new habit!

To further aggravate this new habit of scrolling, notifications are used. When you’ve just started using social media, you might not yet be fooled by the infinite scroll issue. A notification ensures you return to the platform to reinforce the new habit. In time, notifications aren’t necessary anymore, and your thumb creeps to the app icon on its own due to the new habit and the aforementioned dopamine you now crave.

Personalized time distortion in an app

Lastly, the algorithms are not just being serendipitous: they are being specifically your serendipitous. Every scroll, every like, every share creates additional information about what content you like to consume and what keeps you on the platform. Social media makes sure to provide you with more of the same because they want to keep you there. For you, it means your online environment is even harder to quit because it is exactly what you want to see.

The perfect curation of videos, images, and messages creates a kind of black hole: many people experience a time warp on social media. Their perception of time becomes so distorted that researchers have found they can no longer accurately tell how long 15 minutes is. The short, perfectly curated snippets of content make time feel faster than it actually is. That’s how you lose 45 minutes on Instagram, thinking you were scrolling for a mere 5 minutes.

Is willpower the solution?

So far, frustrated parents, self-aware adults, and even teenagers have sought the fault with themselves. “I just don’t have enough discipline” is surely a thought many of us have had. However, science has taken a more nuanced stance recently: our behavior isn’t shaped solely by motivation or self-control, but also by the environment in which choices are made. In the case of social media, that environment is consistently designed to make the choice to quit nearly impossible.

Luckily, big tech’s tricks are being uncovered more every day. We call them nudges, and I will happily explain how you can use them for good, rather than being nudged toward a choice you don’t want to make.