What the feed wants

1The first minute after an alarm is no longer a stretch and a glass of water. It is a thumb. Before the kettle boils, a student may have watched three strangers argue, two football clips and an advertisement for shoes she does not need. None of this was chosen with a list. The feed chose it, using yesterday’s pauses as a map.

2Defenders of the infinite scroll say the user is still in charge: you can close the app. That is like saying a casino is harmless because the door is unlocked. Designers test colours, sounds and the exact delay before the next clip. The product is not information. The product is the extra round.

3Schools have tried bans, pouches and “digital citizenship” lessons that sound like a leaflet. Bans leak; pouches create a black market in spare devices; lessons that only preach self-control ignore the other party in the room — an industry paid to outwait a teenager’s willpower. A more honest unit would open the settings page, count the hours the phone already records, and ask who profits from the number going up.

4None of this requires moral panic. The same devices carry notes, maps and a parent’s call at midnight. The useful distinction is not “technology bad” but “attention is finite”. Once that is admitted, a feed that never ends stops looking like entertainment and starts looking like a leak.