Even YouTube can’t resist the doomscroll

YouTube is among the last bastions of limited, curated content. A new experiment could threaten that. 

YouTube is testing out an unlimited swipe-through model, in which certain Android users can slide up one video to receive another. While YouTube Shorts previously offered vertical scroll, this is a new feature for the platform’s central landscape videos. And it’s unlimited: Users can swipe and swipe, budding new videos with each movement of the finger. 

If that all sounds familiar, it’s because apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook have been using infinite scroll for years. The feature begets late-night doomscrolling, where users spend hours weeding through the depths of their feed, never reaching a bottom. Now YouTube wants in.

Infinite-scroll experiment

A select group of Android users can now scroll vertically through YouTube’s traditional video content. According to a sample video posted by Tushar Mehta, the process is quite simple: You swipe up on a landscape video, and a new one appears. Mehta is critical of the move, writing that YouTube is destroying “the gestures in the Android app one after another.”

While users are just now stumbling on the change, it was actually revealed months ago. When reached for comment, a YouTube representative pointed to an August 12 announcement that briefly references the experiment. The post details “new content discovery experiences,” one being “new feeds of long-form videos.” YouTube will decide whether to roll out the infinite-scroll feature more broadly based on the smaller group’s feedback. 

Reactions on X have been largely negative. Under Mehta’s post, one user wrote: “This is so frustrating. Frustrating enough to drive me to twitter to see if I’m the only one who’s annoyed.” Another explained why this function may work on TikTok, but not on YouTube. “I’m not doom scrolling endless garbage,” he wrote. “I’m watching specific videos that I want to watch and not what YOU want me to watch.”

The death of content limitations

YouTube has many ways to keep its users in-platform. It has Netflix-style autoplay between videos, starting up the next one if left untouched. Its highly specialized algorithm has spot-on content recommendations, dragging users deep into rabbit holes. But the infinite-scroll experiment is tapping into a new-age social media tendency. It’s seeing whether users will doomscroll. 

TikTok’s “For You” page benefits from this habit. Users can spend hours scrolling the feed, moving from clip to clip with abandon. Doomscrolling has pushed TikTok’s use time up: The average TikTok user now spends 58 minutes a day on the app, compared to 27.4 minutes in 2019. Apps like Instagram and Facebook also benefit from this practice, hosting unlimited feeds so users can scroll ceaselessly. 

YouTube was one of the last social media apps to effectively curate its content, offering windows into what could be watched through seductive thumbnails and titles. In that way, YouTube has always straddled the line between being a social media app and something akin to a news organization hosting a homepage of headlines. But this experiment could mark the end of that mission. YouTube is toying with going infinite—and crushing content limitations.

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