Apple Health scroll distance

Aza Raskin, the creator of the infinite scroll, has since stated their regret for inventing this interaction pattern. At this point, Pandora’s box has been open for years and if Aza didn’t invent this feature, I’m certain someone else would have eventually.

That said, it is alarmingly easy to get sucked into scrolling mindlessly on social media for large chunks of time. Yesterday was no exception, as I found myself semi-glued to my phone watching updates roll out on the shooting (as of writing this it’s being investigated as an assassination attempt) at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania.

As I continued to scroll through social media, I thought about the amount of work my thumbs do to sift through a neverending feed of content. Applications like Apple Health (or my app Stompers) measure your physical activity, and apps like Screen Time measure time spent on a device. But what if we combined these two apps?

You can imagine an experience where you get a unit of measurement associated with the amount of scrolling you do. It could be segmented by app (news, Instagram, Twitter, etc.). This would be a bit unhinged because I’m sure the distance we scroll daily is high, but at the same time, it could be an interesting way to shock people into spending less time on their devices. Not my most insane concept, but it’s an interesting idea.

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