Why scrolling reels invariably becomes a binge-watch

With every swipe producing something funny, shocking, useful or completely uninteresting, the user keeps at it, wondering when the next "reward" will arriveAt 22, Abhirup Tiwari, a commerce student in Delhi, sometimes opens Instagram, intending to spend an hour there. It usually begins with one reel between classes or before bed. “You watch one, then another comes up that is exactly the kind of thing you like,” he says. “By the time I realise, 40 minutes are gone. There is never really a point where it feels finished.”That absence of an ending may be part of the problem. Research from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, has looked at how the design of short-video platforms influences behaviour among young people. The study surveyed 119 participants, most of them college students aged 18 to 24. More than a quarter said they find it difficult to stop watching; 31 per cent reported losing track of time; about a third said reels distracted them from studies. Around one in four respondents said they felt bored without reels.The distinction researchers draw is important: watching reels is not simply the digital equivalent of watching television. Television programmes have endings, schedules and commercial breaks—natural cues at which a viewer can stop. Reels remove most of these boundaries.Infinite scrolling makes continuing the default. Autoplay removes the need to consciously choose another video. Personalised algorithms learn what holds a user’s attention and serve more of it. And because every swipe can produce something funny, shocking, useful or completely uninteresting, the user never knows when the next “reward” will arrive. Dr Bhavneet Bharti of PGIMER Chandigarh’s paediatrics department describes it as a “swipe-reward-again” loop driven partly by unpredictable rewards and cues such as boredom or notifications.For Nisha Verma (name changed), 27, a software engineer in Bengaluru, the problem is most obvious at night. She goes to bed around 11.30 pm but often remains on her phone past 1 am. “I’m not even watching anything I particularly want to see,” she says. “That’s the strange part. I keep scrolling because the next video might be interesting.”A systematic review published in European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry in June also argues that short-form video deserves to be studied separately from general screen usage because its interface and rapid content delivery are distinct from older media. The review examines emerging evidence around attention, memory and emotional wellbeing in young people while noting that the field is still developing and cannot yet prove that short videos alone cause these problems.Experts say practical steps such as disabling autoplay and notifications, using app limits, keeping phones away from the bed and replacing scrolling time with sport or another activity can help. But the larger concern remains—modern platforms are increasingly designed to remove the moment at which a user has to decide: do I want to continue?Television asks that question every time a programme ends. Infinite scroll may never ask it at all.Subscribe to India Today Magazine- Ends