The United Kingdom (UK) government is considering new regulations for social media use among children under 16, joining other nations like Australia in addressing the psychological and behavioral impacts of online platforms on younger users. This comes after growing domestic concerns about the addictive nature of social media, particularly with regard to features designed to maximize user engagement.
In an effort to inform its decision-making, the UK government has launched a public consultation, inviting feedback from citizens on the proposed changes. The consultation goes beyond merely enforcing age-based limits on social media access. One of the key proposals includes restricting certain addictive product features, such as infinite scroll, which has long been a topic of debate in the design and tech communities.
If adopted, these new measures would shift the focus of regulation from merely who can access social media platforms to how these platforms are designed and the impact they have on users. Specifically, the infinite scroll feature has raised significant psychological concerns. The feature, which continuously loads content as users scroll, removes natural stopping cues and makes it harder for users to disengage.
From an engineering perspective, infinite scroll is an efficient way to manage large datasets, as it only loads content as needed. It reduces interaction costs by allowing users to keep scrolling without needing to click on additional buttons. However, from a usability and psychological standpoint, this design pattern is more problematic. It leads to longer browsing sessions, deepening user engagement, and is often associated with the phenomenon known as “doomscrolling”—the act of compulsively scrolling through negative or emotionally charged content.
While there are alternatives to infinite scroll, such as pagination or “Load more” buttons, which offer explicit stopping points, infinite scroll has become the default design choice for many social media platforms. Its lack of natural breaks is what concerns policymakers, particularly when it comes to children and young people. Critics argue that it influences attention, fosters habit formation, and encourages users to keep scrolling, even if they don’t intend to.
This new regulatory approach marks a potentially significant step in how social media platforms are designed and evaluated. It could raise important questions about the responsibility of designers, engineers, and policymakers when it comes to influencing behavior at scale, especially in vulnerable populations like children.
Globally, this is not an isolated issue. In the United States, some states have already moved to require warning labels on social media features like infinite scroll and auto-play, particularly when used by minors. As global platforms continue to be used in countries with differing regulatory environments, decisions made in major markets like the UK and the US can influence how products are developed and deployed worldwide.
The consultation may spark a broader conversation in the software engineering community about how design decisions are evaluated, not just for efficiency and engagement, but for their social impact. As more governments consider regulating online platforms, this could become a pivotal moment for the tech industry.
