Chapter 12 Exercises: Endless Feeds, Autoplay, and the Abolition of Stopping Cues

Reflection Exercises

Exercise 1 [Reflection] Recall the last time you experienced significant time distortion while using social media or streaming video — a moment when you looked up and realized much more time had passed than you thought. Write a detailed account of the experience: What were you doing before you started? What triggered the session? At what point did you lose track of time, and what were you engaging with? What finally broke the spell? What did you feel afterward? Analyze your account using the concepts of stopping cues and time distortion from this chapter.

Exercise 2 [Reflection] Reflect on your relationship with one specific autoplay feature (Netflix, YouTube, TikTok, or another platform). How often do you allow autoplay to continue without actively choosing to? Have you ever turned autoplay off? If yes, what prompted you to do so? If no, what would need to be true for you to make that change? What does your honest reflection reveal about your relationship with the default?

Exercise 3 [Reflection] Think about the last time you were using your phone or streaming late at night when you intended to be asleep. Reconstruct the timeline: What time did you plan to stop? What time did you actually stop? What kept you going past your intended stopping time? What were the consequences the next day? Apply the chapter's analysis of the "3am scroll" to your own experience.

Exercise 4 [Reflection] Write a reflection on the concept of "time well spent" as it applies to your own digital use. For each major platform or app you use regularly, rate your typical session on a 1–10 scale for (a) how much time you spent, and (b) how well spent you felt the time was at the end. Where is the gap largest? What explains it?

Exercise 5 [Reflection] Aza Raskin said of infinite scroll: "It's as if they took behavioral cocaine and sprinkled it on the interface." Reflect on how you respond to this metaphor. Does it feel accurate to your experience? Does comparing a design feature to a drug seem appropriate or hyperbolic? What does your reaction reveal about how you think about the power of design relative to individual choice?

Research Exercises

Exercise 6 [Research] Research Aza Raskin's biography and advocacy work. Starting with his invention of infinite scroll and moving through his later regret and co-founding of the Center for Humane Technology with Tristan Harris, construct a timeline of his thinking and public statements. What pivotal experiences or research caused him to change his view of his own invention? What has his advocacy achieved?

Exercise 7 [Research] Find and read Tristan Harris's original 2016 essay "How Technology Is Hijacking Your Mind — From a Magician and Google Design Ethicist." Summarize his main arguments and evaluate them against the academic research cited in this chapter. Where does Harris's argument find support in the peer-reviewed literature? Where does the academic evidence complicate or nuance his claims?

Exercise 8 [Research] Research the history of Netflix's autoplay feature: when it was introduced, how it has changed, what regulatory pressures have affected it, and what Netflix has said publicly about its design rationale. Use a combination of tech journalism, company press releases, and regulatory documents to construct a comprehensive account.

Exercise 9 [Research] Investigate the Center for Humane Technology's current recommendations for platform design. What specific changes do they advocate? Which platforms have adopted any of their recommendations, in what form, and with what documented effects? What has been their political and regulatory influence?

Exercise 10 [Research] Research the "bottomless bowl" experiment and Brian Wansink's food consumption research. Given that some of Wansink's specific findings have been challenged in replication attempts, which core findings in the stopping-cue / portion-size domain have held up under scrutiny? What does the reliable research in this area tell us about human behavior without stopping cues?

Exercise 11 [Research] Find three peer-reviewed studies on the relationship between binge-watching behavior and wellbeing. For each study, note the methodology, sample, key finding, and limitations. What does the collective evidence say about whether binge-watching is harmful, beneficial, or heterogeneous in its effects depending on context and content?

Analysis Exercises

Exercise 12 [Analysis] Conduct a stopping-cue audit of three different digital platforms you use. For each platform, systematically identify: (a) all features that remove or reduce stopping cues, (b) all features that provide or preserve stopping cues, and (c) the balance between the two categories. What does your audit reveal about each platform's design philosophy?

Exercise 13 [Analysis] Apply Kahneman's System 1/System 2 framework to the design of infinite scroll. Specifically: In what ways does infinite scroll exploit System 1 (automatic, fast, effortless processing)? In what ways does it bypass System 2 (deliberate, slow, effortful processing)? What design changes would rebalance the engagement of these two systems in favor of more deliberate choice?

Exercise 14 [Analysis] Analyze the business model logic of stopping-cue removal for a major streaming platform. Specifically: What engagement metrics improve when stopping cues are removed? How do these metrics translate into revenue? What user outcomes might worsen? How are these user outcomes reflected (or not reflected) in the platform's key performance indicators? What would need to change in how the platform measures success for user wellbeing to become a design priority?

Exercise 15 [Analysis] The chapter quotes Dr. Johnson: "Default equals choice only if the default was chosen deliberately." Analyze this claim across three specific examples of digital defaults: (1) autoplay on a streaming platform, (2) push notifications turned on by default on social media, and (3) location services enabled by default in a maps app. For each example, evaluate whether the default represents a genuine user preference or something else. What criteria are you using to make this evaluation?

Exercise 16 [Analysis] Analyze the Zeigarnik effect as a design resource. Make a list of all the ways you can identify that the Zeigarnik effect is exploited across digital media — not just autoplay but also loading animations, "part 2" formats, serialized content, preview segments, "coming up next" announcements, and so on. For each, describe the mechanism and the behavioral objective. What does the range of your examples tell you about how broadly this cognitive mechanism is leveraged?

Exercise 17 [Analysis] Compare traditional broadcast television scheduling with streaming platform design, specifically with respect to stopping cues. Create a side-by-side analysis of: (a) how the end of content is handled, (b) what information users receive about time elapsed, (c) what actions are required to continue vs. stop, and (d) how the platform's design aligns or conflicts with users' stated intentions. What do the differences reveal about changing design values?

Creative Exercises

Exercise 18 [Creative] Write a short story (800–1,000 words) narrated from the perspective of an infinite scroll algorithm. The algorithm describes its purpose, its logic, and its relationship to the users it serves, in the first person. The story should be technically grounded (the algorithm's reasoning should be realistic) while also being emotionally resonant. In a postscript, reflect on what the creative exercise revealed about the nature of the technology.

Exercise 19 [Creative] Design a social media app that is explicitly built around stopping cues. Describe the interface in detail: What happens when you reach the end of available content? How does the app handle time? What prompts, if any, does it provide? What notifications does it use? Create a mockup or detailed written description, and write a brief design rationale explaining the psychological and ethical reasoning behind each major design choice.

Exercise 20 [Creative] Write the internal product presentation that Marcus Webb would have made to Velocity Media's leadership team advocating for the implementation of autoplay. Include: slides (described textually), supporting data, anticipated objections and responses, and the competitive landscape argument. Then write Dr. Johnson's annotated version of the same presentation, with her marginal comments highlighting the ethical concerns at each step.

Exercise 21 [Creative] Create a visual timeline of the "abolition of stopping cues" in media history, from the introduction of the remote control through cable television, DVDs, DVRs, streaming, infinite scroll, and autoplay. At each stage, note: what stopping cue was preserved, what was removed or weakened, and what the behavioral consequence was. Your timeline can be a text outline, an illustrated diagram, or a narrative history.

Exercise 22 [Creative] Write Aza Raskin's remarks at a fictional technology ethics conference, ten years after he invented infinite scroll. His talk should draw on his actual public statements while also extrapolating from the research in this chapter. What has he learned? What does he wish he had known? What does he believe should happen now? The talk should be 600–800 words and should be intellectually substantive, not simply self-flagellating.

Group Exercises

Exercise 23 [Group] Conduct a group "scroll audit." Each group member opens their most-used social media app and scrolls normally for ten minutes while keeping a tally of: items viewed, items they stopped to engage with, and items they remembered at the end. Compare results across the group. What patterns emerge? What does the gap between items viewed and items remembered tell you about the nature of the scrolling experience?

Exercise 24 [Group] Role-play the Velocity Media meeting described in Section 12.6. Assign roles: Marcus Webb, Dr. Aisha Johnson, CEO Sarah Chen, and at least two additional product team members with their own perspectives. The meeting should debate the autoplay decision for at least fifteen minutes, with each participant developing arguments grounded in this chapter's content. After the role-play, debrief: Who was most persuasive? What considerations were hardest to resolve? What decision would the group have made?

Exercise 25 [Group] As a group, design a "digital stopping cue experiment" to run in your own lives for one week. Choose a specific stopping cue to introduce: for example, a physical rubber band on your phone as a reminder to stop after each app session, or a phone placed across the room during the two hours before bed. Each member implements the chosen intervention and keeps a daily log. Share results at the end of the week: What was effective? What was difficult? What did you learn about your own default behaviors?

Exercise 26 [Group] Watch the first fifteen minutes of a Netflix documentary with autoplay enabled, then discuss as a group: At the episode end, did anyone want to stop? Did anyone actually stop? What were the factors that made it easy or difficult to exercise the intention to stop? Then repeat the experiment with autoplay disabled. Compare the experiences. What does the direct comparison reveal about the behavioral effect of the ten-second countdown?

Exercise 27 [Group] Conduct a structured debate on the following resolution: "Social media platforms should be legally required to provide meaningful stopping cues equivalent to those that exist in traditional media." One team argues for the resolution; one argues against. Both teams must engage with the chapter's content and with concrete counterarguments. After the debate, the group should synthesize the strongest points from each side.

Extended Projects

Exercise 28 [Extended Project] Conduct an original time-estimation experiment comparing time estimation during social media scrolling vs. reading a book. Recruit at least 10 participants and have each engage in both activities for 20 minutes (counterbalanced order), then estimate how long they were engaged. Analyze results, calculate mean estimation error for each condition, and write a research report (1,500–2,000 words) following standard social science format.

Exercise 29 [Extended Project] Design and run a personal "stopping cue experiment" over three weeks. In week one, use your devices with all defaults intact. In week two, implement specific stopping cues (pagination substitutes, session time limits, autoplay disabled). In week three, return to defaults. Keep detailed daily logs across all three weeks. Write a 2,000-word autoethnographic analysis comparing your experiences and what they reveal about how design shapes your behavior.

Exercise 30 [Extended Project] Research the sleep science of screen use before bed in depth. Reading at least ten peer-reviewed studies, construct a detailed account of the mechanisms through which screen use disrupts sleep (blue light, content arousal, FOMO), the magnitude of the effects in different populations, and the evidence on interventions (night mode, screen-free bedrooms, etc.). Write a 2,500-word literature review.

Exercise 31 [Extended Project] Analyze the Center for Humane Technology's policy recommendations and their reception by major platforms, regulators, and the public. Using public statements, regulatory documents, and tech journalism, construct an account of what influence, if any, the organization has had on platform design and digital policy. Evaluate the effectiveness of their approach. Write a 2,000-word policy analysis.

Exercise 32 [Extended Project] Design a research study to measure the causal effect of autoplay on binge-watching behavior and next-day wellbeing. Your study should address the key methodological challenges: controlling for content preference, ensuring ecological validity, measuring both behavioral outcomes (episodes watched) and wellbeing outcomes (sleep, mood, satisfaction). Write a detailed study protocol (2,000 words) including rationale, design, measures, and anticipated challenges.

Exercise 33 [Extended Project] Investigate the regulatory approach to autoplay and infinite scroll in at least three jurisdictions (e.g., European Union, United Kingdom, Australia). For each, describe: what regulations exist or are proposed, what the rationale is, what industry resistance has emerged, and what the likely effects would be if fully implemented. Write a 2,500-word comparative policy analysis and conclude with your own assessment of what regulatory approach is most promising.

Exercise 34 [Extended Project] Write a comprehensive review (2,500–3,000 words) of research on the relationship between binge-watching and sleep. Your review should cover the mechanisms, the empirical evidence, the individual difference factors that moderate effects, and the implications for both individuals and platform design. Conclude with a section on evidence-based recommendations.

Exercise 35 [Extended Project] Create a "user's guide to stopping cues" — a practical resource designed to help ordinary users of social media and streaming platforms recognize when stopping cues have been removed, understand the behavioral consequences, and make more deliberate choices about their engagement. The guide should be accessible to a non-academic audience, grounded in the research from this chapter, and practically actionable. Length: 2,000 words.