Why infinite scroll's inventor wants to kill his creation

Recent legal verdicts in California and New Mexico have found tech giants Meta and Google negligent for designing social media platforms that are intentionally addictive and harmful to children's mental health. Aza Raskin, the inventor of the infinite scroll feature, argues that these companies prioritize engagement-based incentives over user well-being, utilizing psychological triggers to bypass human willpower. Unlike previous legal battles, these cases bypass Section 230 protections by focusing on harmful product design rather than user-generated content. Potential remedies include introducing "friction" into user interfaces, such as removing autoplay and infinite scrolling, to restore user autonomy. This shift in accountability coincides with a global movement toward stricter regulation, including social media bans for minors in countries like Indonesia and Australia. As technology evolves toward intimate AI relationships, these legal precedents mark a critical turning point in how society regulates the "attention economy" and its encroachment on human psychology.