“Doomscrolling” is the very real act of spending an excessive amount of time scrolling through your phone, consuming loads of content for what feels like an eternity. It seems that the nagging from your parents saying all your problems are because of your phone are becoming more of a premonition. Most of this “doomscrolling” is due to the infinite feeds that are on people’s social media apps, mainly TikTok and Instagram.
Since most of Gen Z have at least one of these apps, this habit of consuming useless content has somewhat defined our generation, going as far to create a whole new word for mind-numbing media—“brainrot”. But how do TikTok and Instagram differ? Does one cause more “doomscrolling” than the other, and how might their apps’ UX and UI contribute to it?
TikTok began as Musical.ly, an app where users could upload short, music-backed videos ranging from 15 seconds to 1 minute. Many creators used the platform to add creative transitions and edits that synced with the music. In 2018, the app rebranded itself as TikTok, a platform where users can upload just about any kind of random video (as long as it follows Community Guidelines) that can be anywhere from 3 seconds to 10 minutes.
After its release, TikTok’s user base grew rapidly, reaching its peak growth rate in 2020, during the pandemic, a time when all anyone really did was go on the internet. Trying to keep up with the trend of short-form videos, Instagram released a feature called “Reels” in August 2020, allowing existing users to now post short-form videos, essentially following the same concept as TikTok.
Left Side: A regular video on a user’s “For You Page”; Right Side: A TikTok Tips video that prompts users to think about their screentime
Both TikTok and Instagram have a navigation bar at the bottom of their screens that allow users to switch between certain pages. However, TikTok’s main homepage is the “For You Page” (FYP), a feed that is catered by an algorithm based on the user’s interests and likes. When users open the app, they’re immediately presented with engaging videos meant to capture their attention and encourage continued scrolling. This design drives continuous content consumption, since revenue is generated by advertisements and sponsored videos that also show up on the FYP.
TikTok even has a feature that allows users to watch videos at playback speeds of 0.5x, Normal, 1.5x, and 2x. By holding down the edge of the screen, the video automatically plays at 2x speed, facilitating faster content consumption, which might contribute to shortening users' attention spans.
However, the company seems to be aware of the negative perceptions of this “doomscrolling” effect. If you have ever scrolled through TikTok for a long time, you have probably encountered one of their “TikTok Tips” videos, where a person usually says something along the lines of, “Hey, you’ve been scrolling for a long time. Maybe it’s time to take a break!” They also directly link a button that goes to their screen time page. One of these videos is featured in the above picture on the right side. Although these videos are usually passed off as annoying, the user does take a moment to think about how long they have been scrolling, which may be enough to prompt them to exit the app, at least for the time being.
A newer feature TikTok has implemented is a STEM feed (visible in the top left corner of the pictures of the screens). This feed, unlike the regular For You Page, is “an optional feed on TikTok that displays content related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)”. Although most people probably do not spend their time scrolling through this page, it shows that TikTok is taking initiative to develop learning resources, potentially offsetting some of the app’s “brainrotting” content.
Instagram’s Reels Feed
Instagram’s development of the “Reels” feature has now become so relevant to the app that they have included it in their navigation bar. Although it is not the main homepage like TikTok, its presence as a main button demonstrates that it is now an established part of the platform and easily accessible. Its layout is fairly similar to TikTok’s, allowing users to like, comment, and share the videos to friends, yet Instagram’s “doomscrolling” effects slightly differ.
Unlike TikTok, Instagram allows users to see which Reels have already been liked by friends, which likely means that the feed’s algorithm is curated both by the user’s interests but their mutuals’ as well. This may mean that they get content that they are actually not that interested in, but it may also mean that they are getting introduced to something new. Depending on the user, this could either encourage deeper engagement or make users disinterested from less personalized content, affecting “doomscrolling” behavior in different ways. By making likes visible, users could interact with Reels differently because they might be influenced by what their friends are engaging with and consider how their own likes are publicly perceived.