Why Infinite Scrolling is probably a bad idea (2015)
&quot;Infinite scroll&quot; to me screams &quot;bad or nonexistant filtering tools&quot;.<p>Some of the issues listed in the article (memory consumption) can be addressed through hacks (keeping the current and 1-2 higher or lower screens resident, flushing others).  Some (footer unusability) are real problems -- I&#x27;ve largely concluded that sidebars are an anti-pattern for virtually all textual content (hence my use of Reader Mode or Pocket for such content).<p>More often, though, I view a scroll or list as a set of potentially interesting candidates <i>that I want to further winnow down</i>.  The lack of ability to do so in far too many contexts simply boggles me.<p>Not just Facebook (which I don&#x27;t use), or G+ (which I do when Google aren&#x27;t overtly backing antidemocratic anti-equality measures such as the TTP and TTIP -- oh, Facebook and Apple do too), or Reddit.  But, say, <i>shoping</i> sites.<p>I hop onto Amazon and am interested in, say, laptops.  Or cords.  Or pens.  Or chairs.  And am presented with, in response to a reasonable search for that term:<p>1. A great many items which are in no way, shape, or form, laptops.  Or cords.  Or pens.  Or chairs.<p>2. Items far, far outside my price range.<p>3. Vendors whom I will not, ever, under any circumstances, purchase from.<p>Etc.<p>If I were in an actual full-service store, I&#x27;d indicate my preferences to the salesclerk, and, if they were in the least worth their salt, <i>they would remove the offending items and not present them again</i>.  (And if they refused to do so, I&#x27;d simply leave.)  For all its vaunted capabilities, online selection doesn&#x27;t do this.<p>For content, I compare a stream with an offering of, say, publications, authors, topics, and quality-of-writing.  In a physical stack, again, I could eliminate publishers, authors or reporters, genres, publication dates, etc., to get to specifically what I want.  But online:<p>1. Reddit doesn&#x27;t allow me to filter by total quality of a post or discussion.  (The fact that its moderation system makes such filtering all-but-useless is another problem).<p>2. Google+ doesn&#x27;t have author, topic, negative match (e.g., term exclusion, say, -trump or -kardashian), or date selection in its searches.<p>3. Amazon doesn&#x27;t allow filtering within merchandise categories for matching vs. nonmatching items.  Say, stationary items which <i>aren&#x27;t</i> pens, or clothing items which <i>aren&#x27;t</i> slacks.<p><i>None</i> of these tools allows me to select a specific match and indicate &quot;go away&quot; with some level of prejudice:  don&#x27;t show me this item, don&#x27;t show me this author, now, or forever, etc.<p>I&#x27;ve got hugely more utility with a pile of books or articles sitting on a table.<p>Yeah: scrolls are lazy-ass cheap copouts to psychologically hook users (the ones who aren&#x27;t immediately pissed off and run like hell), and to avoid both useful filtering and the necessary deep content classifications required for actually beneficial content selection.