Hooked on the Feed: Investigating Addictive Social Media Design and Non-invasive Solutions

Abstract

Due to the increasing ubiquity of social media, compulsive social media use is an increasingly persistent issue that compels users toward irrational and excessive social media usage, which can lead to negative consequences like losing track of responsibilities. Though reasons for this behaviour are difficult to research, it is theorized that addictive social media design may contribute to compulsive social media use, which this current study aims to study and discover solutions for. Five addictive features have been identified and studied: the infinite scroll, notifications, the typing indicator, streaks and likes. To develop a better understanding and create solutions for these features, a survey study was conducted about how people use and perceive these features. This study resulted in an understanding of how all these features are experienced as addictive to a degree and how they may improve. This led to several proposed design alternatives for each feature that target the problem areas for each feature. To evaluate these designs, a second study, a set of interviews were conducted. The interviews generally indicated that different design alternatives to these addictive features can contribute to decreasing addictive social media use by increasing customization and altering the level of information presented through the feature, but that one size does not fit all for each solution. The results of this study contribute to understanding addictive design better and can contribute to the improvement of social media to make them less addictive.