How infinite scrolling damages our brains - The Saturday Story

How infinite scrolling damages our brains - The Saturday Story

From The Story by The Times

June 6, 2026 · 14 min

About this episode

This episode explores the impact of infinite scrolling on our brains and attention spans.

What starts as a quick check of social media can quickly turn into an hour lost to scrolling. The culprit is infinite scroll , a feature once built for convenience that has become one of the most powerful tools ever created for holding our attention. In fact, it's now thought the average Brit will spend five years of their waking lives doomscrolling. So how did infinite scroll come to dominate our online lives and what is it doing to our brains? This podcast was brought to you thanks to the support of readers of The Times and The Sunday Times. Subscribe today: http://thetimes.com/thestory Read by: Fleur Britten, contributor, The Times. Producer: Dave Creasey. Further reading: I created infinite scroll. Now I regret how it damages our brains We want to hear from you - email: thestory@thetimes.com Photo: Ilustration by Jasmine lee This podcast was brought to you thanks to subscribers of The Times and The Sunday Times. To enjoy unlimited digital access to all our journalism subscribe  here . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

People in this episode

Host: Fleur Britten

Topics covered

  • infinite scrolling
  • social media
  • mental health
  • attention economy
  • technology impact

Keywords

  • infinite scroll
  • doomscrolling
  • social media addiction
  • mental health
  • attention span

Sponsors

The Times

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The Times, The Sunday Times, Acast

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