Pitfall Internet
The Inventor of the Infinite Scroll Is Sorry for Ruining Your Life
Like super, crazeee sorry
In 2006, in a fit of frustration at the limits imposed by the internet page — oh, the limits! oh, the frustration! — Aza Raskin, inventor of the infinite scroll and its close cousin the doom scroll, had an idea: what if the more you scrolled…the more you scrolled!
What if after your initial search, you were presented with quasi/sort-of/not-at-all related results that just kept loading for your scrolling delight until, like an addict shooting between his toes, you found yourself unemployed, living under a bridge with a serviceable cart and good WiFi courtesy of a nearby Starbucks so that, as you adjusted to your new circumstances you could, at the very least, keep scrolling.
For all that, Raskin says, Sor-ree! (and, just for the record, all we got out of Bankman-Fried was, “Oof.”)
Wunderkind Raskin’s infinite scrolling feature created über-powerful, dopamine-inducing, variable rewards thereby rendering it hyper-addictive. The “secret sauce” is the variable part. Like waiting for that elusive hot guy/gal to throw you a text crumb — so devastating!/so rewarding!
