Twitter without Infinite Scroll

I like reading stuff on twitter.com because a lot of interesting people write things there which they don’t write anywhere else.

But Twitter is designed to be addictive, and a key mechanism they use is the “infinite scroll” design. Infinite scroll has been called the Web’s slot machine because of the way it exploits our minds to make us keep reading. It’s an unethical design.

In an essay entitled “If the internet is addictive, why don’t we regulate it?”, the writer Michael Schulson says:

… infinite scroll has no clear benefit for users. It exists almost entirely to circumvent self-control.

Hopefully Twitter will one day consider the ethics of their design. Until then, I made a Firefox extension to remove the infinite scroll feature and replace it with a ‘Load older tweets’ link at the bottom of the page, like this:

The Firefox extension is called Twitter Without Infinite Scroll. It works by injecting some JavaScript code into the Twitter website which disconnects the ‘uiNearTheBottom’ event that would otherwise automatically fetch new data.

Quoting Michael Shulson’s article again:

Giving users a chance to pause and make a choice at the end of each discrete page or session tips the balance of power back in the individual’s direction.

So, if you are a Twitter user, enjoy your new-found power!

Scroll bars

Dear everyone else:

I really like scroll bars. I like how they allow me to see how much of a document I have left to read. So, I become uncomfortable and stressed when it turns out that I am actually reading something of infinite length because I worry that I will be trapped in my chair for the rest of my life.

Love from Sam