Keep the Public’s Attention

Mobile apps and websites have several tricks up their sleeves to grab and hold their users’ attention. Here are a few.

Animations

Animations draw our attention easily. After all, our brains have been hardwired by millions of years of evolution to notice movement. This is why landing pages that have moving components tend to have more conversions and why pop-ups have worked so well for so long. Many businesses know this and incorporate animations into their designs to draw the user’s attention. By nature, we’re designed to notice movement, and moving UI elements grab our attention in the same way.

Endless scrolling

There’s a reason endless scrolling is so widespread—it’s because it works! By removing a stopping point and giving the user a constant feed of new content, endless scrolling tricks our brains to keep scrolling … endlessly. This happens because we get a tiny dopamine hit every time we see something new. Plus, the anticipation of what we’ll see on the next scroll gives us an even bigger dopamine boost.

Infinite autoplay

Facebook, Instagram, Netflix, YouTube … they’re all masters of autoplay. Autoplay is so effective because once a video has started, it’s harder to stop it than to let it keep going. It exploits our fear of missing out. Once we’ve seen just a tiny glimpse of that video, we’re already invested, and it’s damn hard to convince our brain that we don’t need to see the rest of it.

Notifications

So, you’ve finally closed the app and are doing something productive. But like Al Pacino in The Godfather, just when you thought you were out, they pull you back in. Many apps are designed to send frequent and seemingly unnecessary notification to bring users back and boost engagement. They may be personalized and humorous:

Or perhaps even with a bit of guilt:

Either way, once you do finally work your way out of that TikTok rabbit hole, expect notifications to come along and tempt you back in.

Many of us are easily hooked on social media. We get sucked into an endless vortex of notifications, scrolling, and autoplay.

On a personal note, don’t be afraid to turn off notification for apps like Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, or perhaps all notifications. If you feel like you’re stuck in the vortex, try it for a week and see how it feels. You can also take measures like deleting unnecessary apps, blocking notifications at certain hours, and physically distancing yourself from your devices.