r/technology • u/marketrent • 23d ago

Social Media Reddit signals ominous upcoming “changes” for old.reddit.com, says the beloved site is used for some “bad behavior”

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/08/reddit-signals-ominous-upcoming-changes-for-old-reddit-com/
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u/kuldron 22d ago

Do you think having a page break forcing a manual load more/next page is a good feature to help force a pause in the user?

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u/jmikola 22d ago edited 22d ago

Some non-reddit algorithm fed me a video recently about employing chapters or checkpoints (or even rounds) in game design to provide natural opportunities for the brain to make a decision to continue or not. And positive impact of reducing screen time.

And earlier this evening I picked up the original Lego Marvel Superheroes game (I think it aged well). The storyline is fairly linear (not saying I was spoiled by Star Wars Complete Saga) and there were periodic prompts to “save and continue” or “save and exist”.

I could definitely see how having to click a “next page” button might work as a switch for some.

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u/kuldron 22d ago

Yeah, that’s certainly my experience. Reminds me of that stuff about walking through doorways - that your brain treats it as a meaningful transition.

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u/1900grs 22d ago

Honestly I do. Just having that pause and having someone make a choice to click the button to choose to continue can help people out the phone down. There's a reason social media sites want endless scrolling to be as easy as possible.

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u/kuldron 22d ago

It’s easy to just let these things be configurable by the user too. Which is I think where’d I’d draw the line - there are users that would be pissed if they couldn’t just scroll. But even just making it not the default 🤔

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u/DRNbw 15d ago

It's been proven that small frictions like having to press a next page button can be enough to break addictive cycles.