Infinite scrolling is everywhere. It’s part of how social networks feed you content, and how YouTube and Google serve you search results. While some think it’s a good idea, most designers advise against it.

我无限滚动无处不在。 这是社交网络如何为您提供内容以及YouTube和Google如何为您提供搜索结果的一部分。 尽管有些人认为这是个好主意，但大多数设计师建议不要这样做。

“One of my lessons from infinite scroll: that optimizing something for ease-of-use does not mean best for the user or humanity.”

“我从无限滚动中获得的教训之一是：为了易于使用而优化某些内容并不意味着对用户或人类而言都是最佳的。”

— said Aza Raskin, who invented the concept of infinite scroll in 2006. He also said that his own creation wastes about 200,000 human lifetimes per day.

—阿扎·拉斯金( Aza Raskin)说，他在2006年发明了无限滚动的概念。 他还说自己的创作浪费约20万人的生命每天。

Recently, Raskin was featured in Netflix’s The Social Dilemma. The documentary discusses how social media companies try to tweak their algorithms to squeeze out more engagement from their users.

最近，拉斯金(Raskin)在Netflix的《社交困境》中脱颖而出。 该纪录片讨论了社交媒体公司如何尝试调整其算法，以吸引更多用户参与。

While infinite scrolling is not generating endless engagement in itself, it’s a powerful concept, as best illustrated by the evolution of Instagram.

尽管无限滚动本身并不会产生无限的参与，但这是一个强大的概念，Instagram发展已充分说明了这一点。

1.世界你好 (1. Hello world)

Instagram launched in October 2010 and hit 10 million monthly active users in a year. Back then, the service didn’t have stories, IGTV, or reels — it was a plain and simple image sharing network with its 1:1 aspect ratio.

Instagram于2010年10月推出，一年内每月活跃用户达到1000万。 当时，该服务没有故事，IGTV或转盘-它是纵横比为1：1的简单明了的图像共享网络。

There was one thing they implemented from the start: infinite scrolling, a common technique among social networks. Their feed displayed friends’ posts in reverse chronological order.

他们从一开始就实现了一件事：无限滚动，这是社交网络中的一种常见技术。 他们的提要以相反的时间顺序显示朋友的帖子。

The concept is sometimes referred to as a “dopamine seeking reward loop.” Susan Weinschenk, a behavioral psychologist, has put it the following way:

该概念有时被称为“寻求多巴胺的奖励循环”。 行为心理学家Susan Weinschenk提出以下看法：

When you bring up the feed on one of your favorite apps the dopamine loop has become engaged. With every photo you scroll through, headline you read, or link you go to you are feeding the loop which just makes you want more. It takes a lot to reach satiation, and in fact you might never be satisfied. Chances are what makes you stop is that someone interrupts you. It turns out the dopamine system doesn’t have satiety built in.

当您在自己喜欢的应用程序之一上显示Feed时，多巴胺循环就开始起作用了。 滚动浏览每张照片，阅读标题或链接时，循环播放的内容只会使您想要更多。 达到饱足感需要花费很多，实际上，您可能永远不会满意。 使您停下来的可能是某人打扰了您。 事实证明，多巴胺系统没有内置的饱腹感。

In a nutshell, you’re curious about what comes next in the feed. So you keep continuing over and over because you know that there might be something important to you. But the feed of information never ends.

简而言之，您对Feed中的后续功能感到好奇。 因此，您一遍又一遍地继续下去，因为您知道可能对您来说很重要。 但是信息的馈送永远不会结束。

The behavior is even worse than continuously refilling your plate at a buffet. With food, there is a sense of satiety when you know that you can’t eat more.

这种行为甚至比自助餐时不断地重新装满盘子还要糟糕。 有了食物，当您知道自己不能吃更多的东西时，就会有一种饱腹感。

How Instagram initially implemented infinite scrolling was still one of the more user-friendly options. Back then, they hadn’t scrambled their feed to put posts randomly after each other but implemented a reverse chronological order. With that, users could recognize if they were already looking at posts from two weeks before.

Instagram最初如何实现无限滚动仍然是更加用户友好的选项之一。 那时，他们还没有争先恐后地在彼此之间随机排列帖子，而是按照相反的时间顺序排列。 这样，用户就可以识别出他们是否已经在查看两周前的帖子。

2.算法接管 (2. The algorithm takes over)

In 2016, four years after the Facebook acquisition, Instagram changed its feed logic and announced algorithmic sorting with the following reason:

在2016年，即Facebook被Facebook收购四年后，Instagram更改了Feed逻辑并宣布了算法排序，其原因如下：

…to improve your experience, your feed will soon be ordered to show the moments we believe you will care about the most.

…为了改善您的体验，我们将很快下订单您的feed，以显示我们认为您最关心的时刻。

The order of photos and videos in your feed will be based on the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting and the timeliness of the post.

供稿中照片和视频的顺序将取决于您对内容感兴趣的可能性，与发布者的关系以及发布的及时性。

The motivator behind the change? Engagement and ad dollars.

推动变革的动力？ 参与度和广告费用。

• Engagement: Users simply spend more time within the image-sharing application if their feed is scrambled. The dopamine effect is kicking in, and they’re just looking for the next surprise.

  订婚： 如果他们的提要被打乱，用户只需在图像共享应用程序中花费更多时间。 多巴胺效应开始发挥作用，他们只是在寻找下一个惊喜。

• Ad dollars: Instagram rolled out ads globally, just a shy six months before introducing algorithmic sorting. The timing is probably not a coincidence, as more time spent in the app translates to more ad revenue.

  广告费： Instagram在全球推出广告，距离引入算法排序还差六个月。 时机可能并非巧合，因为在应用中花费的时间更多会转化为更多的广告收入。

From the aspect of behavioral psychology, the unpredictable algorithm just made things worse. Until that point, users had control of how much earlier they go back in time when they are scrolling their Instagram feed.

从行为心理学的角度来看，不可预测的算法只会使事情变得更糟。 在此之前，用户可以控制滚动Instagram feed的时间。

Now, this control is gone.

现在，此控件已消失。

The mental crutches that were provided are not available anymore. Even a recent post could make it to the very end of the feed, so you’ll likely spend more time to get through your content.

提供的精神拐杖不再可用。 即使是最近发布的帖子，也可能会持续到Feed的最后，因此您可能会花费更多的时间来浏览内容。

3.好人Instagram (3. Good guy Instagram)

In 2018, several companies started to battle against smartphone addiction. As part of this effort, Instagram also tweaked its feed again and introduced a new “You’re All Caught Up” message in the app. This notification appeared above posts older than two days, or the ones already seen by the user:

在2018年，几家公司开始与智能手机成瘾作斗争。 作为这项工作的一部分，Instagram还再次调整了它的feed，并在应用程序中引入了新的“ You are All Caught Up”消息。 该通知显示在超过两天的帖子或用户已经看到的帖子上方：

With this change, Instagram became the good guy again.

有了这一变化，Instagram再次成为好人。

While the feed was still algorithmically ordered and filled with ads, users regained some mind control over the infinite scroll. Most users treated this as a welcome change, and some even realized how unhealthy habits they’ve formed with their favorite social media app:

尽管Feed仍通过算法进行了排序并充满了广告，但用户重新获得了对无限滚动的控制。 大多数用户将此视为可喜的变化，甚至一些用户意识到他们使用自己喜欢的社交媒体应用程序养成了不健康的习惯：

…a week or so later, it’s starting to feel less like a sweet smile and more like an admonishment. It’s as if I was trying to quit sugar and, every time I reached for a cookie at 3:36 P.M. in my office, a hologram of my elementary-school gym teacher’s face appeared, shaking its head and signaling that the jar is empty.

…大约一周后，它开始变得不像甜蜜的微笑，而更像是一种警告。 好像我想戒掉糖，每次我在办公室下午3:36拿饼干时，我的小学体育老师脸部全息图就出现了，摇了摇头，表示罐子是空的。

The catch? There was none.

抓住？ 没有。

While a similar notification was never fully released to the Facebook feed, Workplace, the company’s corporate collaboration platform, received the feature.

尽管从未将类似的通知完全发布到Facebook提要中，但该公司的企业协作平台Workplace却收到了该功能。

What is interesting to note here is the different goals of the two products and how they relate to the concept of infinite scrolling:

这里有趣的是，这两种产品的目标不同，以及它们与无限滚动的概念之间的关系：

• For consumer Facebook, the goal is to get more people to the platform and make them spend more time. This generates more ad views and more money from advertisers. Regular users don’t pay anything for the service. This way, the infinite scroll and any actions to keep users glued to their screen directly benefit the company.

  对于消费者Facebook而言，目标是使更多的人使用该平台，并使他们花费更多的时间。 这样可以产生更多的广告观看次数，并从广告商那里获得更多的收入。 普通用户不为此服务支付任何费用。 这样，无限滚动和使用户保持粘在屏幕上的任何操作都会直接使公司受益。

• For the corporate Workplace tool, the objective is similar, but not the same. The first part matches, to get more people on the platform. The difference though that these people don’t see any advertisements as their companies are paying for the service. Here, Facebook doesn’t benefit from increasing the screen time on the platform as long as users are engaged enough to continue to pay.

  对于公司Workplace工具，目标是相似的，但不相同。 第一部分匹配，以在平台上吸引更多人。 区别在于，这些人在公司为服务付费时看不到任何广告。 在这里，只要用户参与度足以继续付款，Facebook就不会从增加屏幕显示时间中受益。

4.然后Instagram成为坏人 (4. Then Instagram becomes the bad guy)

Back in 2018, before Instagram announced its new screen time feature, former CEO and co-founder Kevin Systrom said the following:

回顾2018年，在Instagram宣布其新的屏幕时间功能之前，前首席执行官兼联合创始人Kevin Systrom表示：

In contrast, it seems this year, Instagram is reversing its stance from two years ago when they were intending the time spent in the application to be “positive and intentional.”

相比之下，今年看来，Instagram正在改变其两年前的立场，当时他们打算将应用程序中的时间花在“积极和有意”上。

In August 2020, the social media company introduced Suggested Posts. These posts show up after you’ve reached the end of your feed, from accounts that you don’t actually follow. Once you scroll past the “You’re All Caught Up” message, you’ll encounter this endless loop of suggestions.

2020年8月，这家社交媒体公司推出了《建议的帖子》 。 当您到达Feed的末尾时，这些帖子会从您实际上并不关注的帐户中显示出来。 滚动经过“ You are All Caught Up”消息后，您将遇到无休止的建议循环。

Instagram’s Julian Gutman says the content here is planned to be different from the Discover tab. While Suggested Posts feature related content to what people already follow, the Explore tab remains a place for adjacent content.

Instagram朱利安·古特曼(Julian Gutman)说，这里的内容计划与“发现”选项卡不同。 虽然“建议的帖子”功能与人们已经关注的内容相关，但“浏览”选项卡仍是放置相邻内容的地方。

So what does it mean in the context of infinite scroll?

那么在无限滚动的背景下这意味着什么呢？

Infinite scroll is often regarded as the new generations’ slot machine. Tristan Harris, a former design ethicist at Google, described has described it in the following way:

无限滚动通常被视为新一代的老虎机。 Google的前设计伦理学家Tristan Harris描述了以下内容：

“You pull a lever and immediately receive either an enticing reward (a match, a prize!) or nothing,”

“您拉动杠杆，立即获得诱人的奖励(比赛，奖品！)或一无所获，”

With Instagram’s recent feed change, the company just reinforced this concept. If it was already enticing to see new posts from people you follow, how tempting could it be to discover things from an entirely new group of creators?

随着Instagram最近的Feed更改，该公司只是加强了这一概念。 如果已经开始吸引您关注的人发布新帖子，那么从一个全新的创作者团队中发现事物可能会多么诱人？

So is it okay if you just scroll down one more time?

那么，再向下滚动一次就可以了吗？

And one more time?

还有一次？

Suggested posts also feature advertisements. In between two posts, you might find similar ads as if you were browsing through your friends’ posts.

建议的帖子还带有广告。 在两个帖子之间，您可能会发现类似的广告，就像浏览朋友的帖子一样。

Clearly, there is a commercial motivation behind it. As discussed before, the more time users spend glued to their feed, the more ad views are generated, and the more profit Instagram is making from advertisers.

显然，背后有商业动机。 如前所述，用户将更多的时间花费在其feed上，生成的广告观看次数就越多，Instagram从广告商那里获得的利润也就越多。

拥有权利的同时也被赋予了重大的责任 (With great power comes great responsibility)

Companies utilizing psychological tricks that make you consume more must have some kind of responsibilities. Instagram is clearly not alone in this game, and it’s also not just about social media companies.

利用心理技巧，让你消耗更多的必须有某种责任的Çompanies。 显然，Instagram在这个游戏中并不孤单，它也不仅仅与社交媒体公司有关。

Infinite scrolling is still widely used in many applications, even though it’s proven to be addictive at best and harmful at worst.

无限滚动仍被广泛应用在许多应用程序中，尽管事实证明，无限滚动在最佳状态下会令人上瘾，而在最坏的情况下仍会有害。

What we can do—and perhaps the only thing we can do at this point — is be mindful of our habits.

我们能做的-也许这时我们唯一能做的-是要注意我们的习惯。

Next time, if you realize that you’ve been mindlessly browsing something for at least fifteen minutes, ask yourself:

下次，如果您意识到至少十五分钟内一直在漫不经心地浏览某些内容，请问自己：

Was it time well spent?

时间花得好吗？

You would be surprised how many times you would say no.

您会惊讶于您拒绝几次。