ZenScrolling

As I've mentioned in my previous posts, social feeds never end. They're designed to keep you scrolling: recommendations, FOMO, the Zeigarnik effect, dopamine loops… and I want to see if I can break that design.

In my last post, we talked about stopping points, signals, and rules. One of the simplest - and potentially most powerful - signals might be emptiness.

Imagine this: as you read, posts you've seen disappear, closing the loop on each interaction. And then… the feed ends. No more content. Nothing.

How would that feel? Anxiety? Relief? Could this break the dopamine cycles and UX tricks that keep users scrolling?

Based on everything I've been exploring - FOMO, the Zeigarnik effect (unfinished things stick in your mind), ideas from Marshall McLuhan, and my own scrolling habits - I came to a question: what would a feed look like if it was designed to end?

Here's the simplest version of that idea.

1. No recommendations - only subscriptions

Recommendations are great at keeping you inside the feed. Removing them reduces the "just one more post" effect and makes the content more intentional.

2. A fixed amount of content per session

Not a timer that interrupts you. But a limited number of posts. When you reach the end - the feed ends. No hidden "more content" behind the next scroll.

3. The length of the feed matches your time

Since time is our most limited resource, the number of posts can be adapted to a session length. So instead of scrolling endlessly, you're effectively choosing, say, ~10 minutes of content. And then you get exactly that.

In a way, this brings feeds closer to how content works in the physical world. My intuition is that this could create a very different feeling:

- less tension

- less FOMO

- more sense of completion

Maybe even a bit of relief.

Does this idea resonate with you? Or does it feel too restrictive or overthought?

In my previous post I wrote about a simple observation: infinite feeds don't have a natural stopping point. So users have to invent one themselves. Over time I noticed that people usually rely on two types of stopping rules.

Internal ones.

These depend on willpower or personal criteria. For example:

- "I'll stop when I find 3 good references for my art."

- "Just 10 more minutes."

- "One last post."

But internal rules require cognitive effort. And the moment we start scrolling is often the moment when that effort is already depleted. Many people open social media when they're tired, stressed, or procrastinating. In that state, willpower is weaker. So people often rely on the second type of stopping rule.

External ones.

Things like:

- timers

- screen-time limits

- an upcoming meeting

These signals interrupt the session from the outside. Personally, I find timers especially frustrating. They often go off right in the middle of something interesting, when I'm not mentally ready to stop yet. Meanwhile I can still see that there are many posts left unseen. My FOMO is not happy about that.

This is also related to something psychologists call the Zeigarnik effect, first described by Bluma Zeigarnik: unfinished tasks tend to stay active in our minds. When something feels incomplete, our brain keeps returning to it.

Infinite feeds create a perfect environment for this. There is always more content just beyond the next scroll. So this made me wonder about a different approach.

What if the stopping point didn’t rely on willpower… and didn't interrupt you from the outside? What if the content itself had a natural end again?

Imagine opening a feed that contains a limited number of posts for a session. When you finish them, the feed simply ends.

Not because a timer stopped you.

Not because you forced yourself to quit.

Just because the session is complete.

My hypothesis is that this could create something infinite feeds currently lack: a real sense of completion. The brain can finally close the loop instead of staying in a state of "maybe the next post will be better."

I'm curious whether this idea actually changes how people scroll. It feels like something worth testing as an experiment.

At some point I realized that one of my biggest weaknesses is FOMO.

There was a time when social media feeds were short enough so I could scroll until I reached posts I had already seen, and I wouldn’t miss anything. Although it took A LOT of time, that was the natural stopping point. Today this is almost impossible.

I noticed the same pattern in online stores. I used to try to scroll through ALL the products that meet my criteria so I wouldn’t miss the best option. Of course that took an absurd amount of time.

Eventually I developed little rules for myself. For example, in a store I might decide: once I find three good options, I stop looking. (Yes, I’m a mathematician. Stopping criteria feel natural to me.) When the content is endless, you either stop by pure willpower… or you invent a stopping rule.

But it also made me notice something strange. Endless content is actually rare outside of the internet.

Books end.

Movies end.

Newspapers end.

Even a physical store eventually runs out of shelves.

Most forms of content come with a built-in signal that says: this is the end.

Infinite feeds remove that signal.

And when there is no natural stopping point, the brain keeps scanning the horizon: maybe the next post will be the best one.

That made me wonder whether the problem with scrolling isn’t just discipline. Maybe the medium itself quietly pushes us toward endless consumption. And that made me curious about a simple question:

what would happen if a feed had a natural end again?

I keep seeing founders jump straight into building, and skip the boring-but-crucial early questions. To make the first pass easier, here’s a compact checklist you can drop into ChatGPT along with your idea. It gives a structured breakdown before you write a single line of code.

Copy/paste this into ChatGPT:

**1. Problem & Use Case**

– What exact problem does this solve, and when does the user feel it?

– Why is the problem painful enough to deserve a solution?

**2. Target User**

– Who feels this problem strongly?

– What do they currently use as a workaround?

– Where can they be found online?

**3. Competitor Landscape**

– Which direct or indirect competitors exist?

– How do they monetize?

– What are their strengths and weaknesses?

**4. Differentiation**

– What makes this idea meaningfully different?

– What is the core value without buzzwords?

**5. Key Assumptions to Validate**

– Which assumptions are most likely to break the idea?

– What are the fastest ways to test them?

**6. Demand Signals**

– Are people actively searching for solutions to this?

– What evidence suggests willingness to pay?

**7. Revenue Scenarios**

– Generate base, optimistic, and pessimistic revenue projections.

– Identify the revenue level at which the project becomes sustainable.

**8. Cost Structure**

– Estimate realistic MVP and first-3-months costs.

– Highlight recurring vs. one-time expenses.

**9. Go-to-Market Plan**

– What’s the simplest path to the first 10 interested users?

– Which acquisition channels fit this niche?

– Are there relevant case studies from similar products?

**10. MVP Definition**

– What is the smallest useful version of the product?

– What can be postponed until after validation?

**11. Risk Overview**

– What are the major technical, market, and operational risks?

– What’s the most likely failure mode?

**12. Timeline**

– Break the project into phases with realistic timelines.

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Paste your idea under this checklist and ChatGPT will give you a clean early-stage analysis. Sometimes this shortens weeks of guessing into a single conversation.

Curious whether anyone here uses a similar question set — or if there’s an important early-stage question missing from this list.

It all started when a former colleague mentioned Marshall McLuhan in a chat. Curious, I asked GPT about his main ideas. I was struck by the concept that our thinking is shaped by the ways we transmit and consume information.

That got me wondering: maybe we should rethink how we consume information if we want to influence our own thinking. Since most of our information comes from social media feeds, I started focusing there.

Personally, both my husband and I have struggled with endless scrolling, and it’s something I want to approach mindfully.

I’m exploring ways to structure existing feeds like Reddit and Twitter to help people consume content consciously — limiting mindless scrolling, giving control over what appears, and helping people reflect on their experience, rather than building another social network.

Do you think that changing the way we interact with feeds could help foster more mindful thinking — not just in social media, but in other areas of life too?