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Infinite Scrolling refers to a website design where there is no fixed height – and thus amount of content – but instead the page keeps displaying new material as the user reaches the perceived bottom of the page.

You might not immediately see anything particularly important about this, beyond its role as a design element. That is, most people might simply shrug and dismiss it as a simply functional element, limited to webpage design.

The truth is, infinite scrolling is an incredibly insidious factor of ideology and cultural destabilization.

As I’ll analyze in this post, infinite scrolling is responsible for both propagating mediocrity and destabilizing perceptions. Of course, the two are directly relevant to one another.

The Technicalities of Infinite Scrolling

From a technical, programmatic standpoint, employing an infinite scrolling layout is easy. As soon as the user approaches the bottom of the already loaded container, the page fetches and displays more content.

Of course, even from a purely technical perspective, this has a negative impact on user experience. Most websites using infinite scrolling employ methods that are detrimental to page speed, responsiveness, and overall functionality.

Every time you go to a page and you see grey squares with some minor animation, and only after several seconds does the actual content appear, you’re witnessing this very thing.

The Ideological Baggage of Infinite Scrolling

As I said in the introduction, most people wouldn’t think there’s anything particular sinister about infinite scrolling.

Well, the problem is, most people don’t think.

In actual fact, infinite scrolling introduces a set of ideological baggage that – on an insidious, subjective level – operates by perpetuating the unfathomable mediocrity around us, as well as by destabilizing our perception on what is fact and what fake news.

Propagating Mediocrity: On Dogs Eating Sausages

In the times before infinite scrolling – it’s easier to imagine with a traditional, printed newspaper – editorial space was limited.

Journalist teams had to negotiate and decide on what was worth printing and what not. Priorities had to be considered carefully. Something might have been alright for page 12 but not the front page. Some things didn’t make the cut at all.

All this changed with the internet, especially once infinite scrolling became a design decision – obeying marketing decisions. The more the space, the more you keep people hooked, the more ads you can shove down their throat.

Of course now the opposite problem emerged: Whereas before there was too little space and too much material, now there is too much space (indeed theoretically infinite) and not enough material. So the “solution” is to simply drop all pretense at quality and include everything in the “front page” – because infinite scrolling essentially implies a long (infinite) front page.

Every intern and freelancer, some of them barely able to put two words together, nowadays scans the internet for “news” to translate into the publication’s language. Sometimes they even recycle “news” from times agone, or even make them up altogether. I bet AI offers plenty of new opportunities.

It used to be so that a story on a local politician accepting bribes wouldn’t quite make it to the front page – especially on a busy news day. Nowadays, we’re inundated with “news” like “Marty the Dog Eats 20 Sausages a Day!”

Destabilizing Perceptions: On Sudden Deaths and Other Faux Changes

There’s another, perhaps even more sinister dimension here. Of course, it’s also a direct consequence of the previous one. The audience, having lost their criteria, form opinions based on this skewed amount of information – of insignificant information.

When you think about it, public opinion nowadays is an aggregate of functionally illiterate zombies consuming “news” like Marty the dog eating sausages, all while fantasizing about heroes.

Here’s an example – indeed, it was what motivated me to write this post: Reading a news article about an airline pilot who died suddenly during a flight, a commentator – another scourge of our times; people eager to comment – mentioned how they find it suspicious that there are so many sudden deaths. Naturally, there is a very conspiratorial aura in this (draw your own conclusions).

As another commentator aptly explained to that person, what nowadays is front-page, large-font, fear-inducing “news” – “AIRLINE PILOT DIES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FLIGHT! HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PASSENGERS” [the plane landed safely in the hands of the first officer] – wouldn’t even make it under the obituaries twenty years ago, in a traditional newspaper.

There aren’t more pilots (or people in general) dying suddenly compared to 20 years ago. You just hear more about it.

What Can Be Done?

My usual response applies: Nothing, really. Call me pessimistic or cynical – or just a realist – but societies are just too average, too mediocre, too self-indulgent to do anything about the mechanisms that perpetuate their condition.

Infinite scrolling, like any insidious little pebble that forms the wall blocking our world from a better future, will not go away as a result of voluntary, inside action. It will only go away if the decision is imposed from the outside – take your pick speculating what that could be.

On an individual level, what you can do to safeguard your own decency is to simply be aware of the pitfalls. Avoid scrolling endlessly if there isn’t anything specific you’re after – and try to find it in alternative ways, like searching for it with keywords, where possible.