Infinite scroll is a design decision, not the weather.

In July 2026, the European Commission said it had preliminarily found Meta in breach of the Digital Services Act over the addictive design of Instagram and Facebook. The Commission’s investigation focuses on infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications and highly personalised recommender systems. This is a preliminary finding, not a final decision.

The Commission said Meta did not adequately assess risks to the physical and mental wellbeing of users, including minors and vulnerable adults, and that its mitigation measures had not effectively addressed those risks. The significance is not that one feature is inherently unlawful; it is that the surrounding system can be assessed as a product of its combined choices.

Friction can protect a decision

Platforms are very good at removing friction from the next clip, the next post and the next notification. But users also need friction in the other direction: a visible stopping point, quieter defaults and a feed that does not treat every pause as a prompt to continue.

Use the controls that already exist: turn off non-essential notifications, set time limits where they help and choose chronological or non-profiled feeds when a service offers them. Those are individual boundaries, not a substitute for better design. The larger question is whether the default product respects a person who has had enough.