Chapter 1
The weight of the web
Chapter 2
Curating your digital garden
Chapter 3
The magic of analog resets
Chapter 4
Reclaiming the slow web
Ch 1 · The weight of the web
007skaty Doomscrolling and the Brain
Stuck on the bad news / Scanning for danger / Ancient survival drive
BETA
007skaty Swipe away quick digital alerts to discover the heavy mental cost of micro-moments.
007skaty Developer Aza Raskin invented the infinite scroll in 2006, removing page-turn cues to mimic a bottomless bowl of soup.
Quiz
A Cornell study found that eating from bottomless soup bowls caused people to eat how much more?
007skaty Yale and NYU researchers found that algorithms exploit outrage to keep users online
Quiz
According to a 2013 study, by what percentage does each moral-outrage word increase a tweet's retweet rate?
Quiz
Which universities collaborated on the 2013 study analyzing how moral-outrage words affect online sharing?
Fun Fact
Internet weight: Russell Seitz calculated that the active electrons keeping the global internet running weigh just 50 grams, roughly the weight of a strawberry.
Quiz
Which hormone is triggered by frequent push notifications, causing feelings of anxiety and stress?
Quiz
According to research, how long does it take the average person to refocus on a task after an interruption?
Glossary
page weight (noun)
The total file size of a web page, typically measured in kilobytes or megabytes. In 2010, the median page weight tracked by the HTTP Archive was only 467 kilobytes.
The total file size of a web page, typically measured in kilobytes or megabytes. In 2010, the median page weight tracked by the HTTP Archive was only 467 kilobytes.
Quiz
What term describes the obsessive act of scrolling through social media to read negative news?
Quiz
Which almond-shaped part of the brain acts as the threat-detection center and drives our focus on negative news?