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

Foundational Design Ethics

1. Harris, T. (2016, May 18). How technology is hijacking your mind — from a magician and Google design ethicist. Thrive Global (Medium). The viral essay that brought the design ethics critique of social media to mass consciousness. Harris, drawing on his background as a designer and former magician, argues that technology platforms exploit cognitive vulnerabilities rather than serving users' genuine intentions. The essay's wide circulation influenced public discourse, regulatory conversations, and inspired a generation of technology workers to examine the ethics of what they build. Required reading for anyone studying the attention economy.

2. Williams, J. (2018). Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy. Cambridge University Press. A rigorous philosophical examination of the attention economy by a former Google advertising strategist who left to study philosophy at Oxford. Williams argues that the systematic capture of human attention by digital platforms represents a threat not merely to wellbeing but to human autonomy and democratic self-governance. More philosophically demanding than most popular accounts, and correspondingly more substantive.

3. Raskin, A. (2019). Unwanted advances: What happens when the internet seduces you into spending more time online than you want. Time (various interviews and essays). Raskin's own published reflections on the invention of infinite scroll and his subsequent advocacy work. Reading these essays alongside the chapter's account gives direct access to the inventor's perspective. Available through the Center for Humane Technology's website and in collected form in various technology ethics anthologies.

Psychology of Stopping Cues and Behavioral Economics

4. Wansink, B. (2006). Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. Bantam Books. Wansink's popular account of food consumption research, including the bottomless bowl experiment. While some of Wansink's specific experimental findings have been challenged in later replication attempts, the core insight about the role of environmental cues in regulating consumption is well-supported by independent research. Read with awareness of the replication controversies but appreciate the framework.

5. Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Yale University Press. The foundational text of behavioral economics applied to policy design. Thaler and Sunstein's analysis of default effects — how the framing of choices as opt-in vs. opt-out significantly affects behavior — provides the theoretical basis for understanding why autoplay default-on is a behavioral intervention rather than a neutral feature. Essential context for the policy debate about platform design defaults.

6. Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The accessible synthesis of behavioral economics and cognitive psychology by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman. The System 1 / System 2 framework provides the theoretical foundation for understanding why stopping cue removal shifts behavior toward default continuation. The book's treatment of cognitive biases, heuristics, and the role of environmental framing in decision-making is directly applicable to social media design analysis.

Binge-Watching and Streaming Research

7. Flayelle, M., Maurage, P., & Billieux, J. (2017). Toward a qualitative understanding of binge-watching behaviors: A focus group approach. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 6(4), 457–471. Qualitative research on the phenomenology of binge-watching from a sample of heavy series viewers. The study identifies both positive dimensions (relaxation, narrative engagement, social sharing) and problematic dimensions (loss of control, sleep disruption, next-day regret). Useful for understanding binge-watching as a heterogeneous phenomenon rather than uniformly harmful or harmless.

8. Sung, Y. H., Kang, E. Y., & Lee, W. (2018). Why do we indulge? Exploring motivations for binge watching. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 62(3), 408–426. Survey-based study examining motivations for binge-watching. Finds that relaxation, entertainment, and narrative curiosity are primary motivations, while social influence and FOMO play secondary roles. The interaction between autoplay design and motivational states is an important dimension of understanding when binge-watching serves users' goals and when it does not.

9. Exelmans, L., & Van den Bulck, J. (2017). Bedtime, shuteye time and electronic media: Sleep displacement is a two-step process. Journal of Sleep Research, 26(3), 364–370. Research on the mechanisms through which electronic media use displaces sleep. Distinguishes between cognitive arousal from content (keeping the mind active) and direct displacement (using devices instead of sleeping). The two-mechanism framework is useful for understanding how stopping-cue removal at night compounds biological sleep-disruption effects.

Circadian Biology and Screen Use

10. Chang, A. M., Aeschbach, D., Duffy, J. F., & Czeisler, C. A. (2015). Evening use of light-emitting eReaders negatively affects sleep, circadian timing, and next-morning alertness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(4), 1232–1237. Controlled study comparing evening reading on light-emitting devices vs. printed books. Finds that device reading delays melatonin onset, reduces REM sleep, and produces worse next-morning alertness — even when total sleep time is controlled. The study isolates the light-emission mechanism from the content arousal mechanism, which is important for understanding the independent contribution of screen light to sleep disruption.

11. Twenge, J. M., & Hisler, G. C. (2019). Associations between screen time and sleep duration are primarily driven by portable electronic devices: evidence from a population-based study of US children ages 0–17. BMC Public Health, 19, 1139. Large-scale population study demonstrating that the association between screen time and reduced sleep is primarily driven by portable devices (phones, tablets) used after bedtime rather than by total screen time per se. Directly relevant to the "3am scroll" phenomenon and the role of platform design in late-night engagement.

Technology Design Ethics

12. Monteiro, M. (2019). Ruined by Design: How Designers Destroyed the World, and What We Can Do to Fix It. Mule Design Studio. A polemic from a design professional arguing that designers bear moral responsibility for the effects of the systems they build, and that the design profession has failed to take that responsibility seriously. Monteiro's argument is deliberately provocative, but it raises important questions about professional ethics in technology design. Valuable for its contrast with the more measured academic literature.

13. Morozov, E. (2013). To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism. PublicAffairs. A critique of the ideology of technological solutionism — the belief that every social problem can be solved by the right app or algorithm. Morozov's analysis of the assumptions embedded in technology design culture is relevant to understanding why the friction-removal ideology did not question its own assumptions about what "better" means.

14. Center for Humane Technology. (2023). Ledger of Harms. humanetech.com. The Center for Humane Technology's ongoing documentation of research on the harms of social media and digital technology design. Organized by harm type (attention, loneliness, misinformation, etc.) with citations to peer-reviewed research. A useful reference resource for students working in this area, though readers should note the organization's advocacy perspective.

Attention and Time Perception

15. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper & Row. The foundational work on the psychology of flow — the state of complete absorption in an activity. Csikszentmihalyi's characterization of flow (time distortion, loss of self-consciousness, intrinsic motivation) is relevant to evaluating whether the scroll state is a genuine form of flow or a counterfeit version that shares some phenomenological features while lacking others. Essential context for the chapter's discussion of time distortion.

16. Ophir, E., Nass, C., & Wagner, A. D. (2009). Cognitive control in media multitaskers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(37), 15583–15587. Important study finding that heavy media multitaskers perform worse on attention and cognitive control tasks than light multitaskers, despite (or because of) their extensive experience with managing multiple information streams. Relevant to the chapter's discussion of what continuous partial attention during scrolling does to subsequent cognitive function.

Regulatory and Policy Perspectives

17. European Commission. (2022). Digital Services Act. EUR-Lex. The European Union's regulatory framework for digital platforms, which includes provisions on algorithmic recommendation systems, advertising practices, and user rights. The DSA represents the most comprehensive regulatory response to the concerns raised in this chapter and is a key document for understanding the policy landscape. Available in full at EUR-Lex; accessible summaries available from multiple policy organizations.

18. UK Children's Commissioner. (2023). Children and Social Media: Protecting Children Online. Her Majesty's Stationery Office. The UK Children's Commissioner's assessment of the evidence on social media's effects on children and recommendations for regulatory and platform responses. Represents a well-resourced government synthesis of the research in a form accessible to policymakers and the public.

19. Newport, C. (2019). Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. Portfolio/Penguin. A practical and philosophical argument for intentional, selective digital engagement. Newport's concept of "digital minimalism" — using technology deliberately, with clear understanding of its costs and benefits — provides a framework for individual response to the stopping-cue problem. The book draws on the behavioral science literature while offering actionable guidance.

20. Price, C., & Nicoll, G. (2021). Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self. St. Martin's Press. An examination of the role of boredom and unstructured mental time in creativity and wellbeing, and an argument for creating more of it in digital lives. Relevant to the stopping-cue discussion because it articulates what is lost when the scroll eliminates idle time: the mind's capacity to process, integrate, and generate that occurs during apparent inactivity.