Habit Tracking: Instagram Reels & TikTok Scrolling
The behavior I chose to track was scrolling on Instagram Reels and TikTok. I picked this habit because it felt automatic and disproportionately time-consuming, especially during moments when I was bored or trying to avoid starting cognitively demanding work. It also makes me feel like sometimes I have no control over my life. Unlike intentional social media use (posting, messaging) scrolling felt less conscious and harder to stop once it started, which made it a good candidate for habit analysis for me.
Measurement (2 days):
I tracked this behavior over two full days, noting when scrolling started, the context, and how long it lasted. I measured at intervals (each scrolling session), since the habit happened randomly rather than at fixed times.
Patterns I noticed where scrolling most often started:
- In bed before sleeping
- During short breaks between tasks
- When I felt mentally tired or overwhelmed
- Most sessions began as “just a few minutes” but extended way longer than intended.
Model 1: Connection Circle
The connection circle deepened my understanding by revealing how these factors reinforce one another over time through multiple feedback loops. For example, feeling tired increases the likelihood of scrolling, scrolling delays sleep, and poor sleep increases fatigue the next day, making scrolling even more likely. Similarly, algorithmic personalization improves content relevance and relatability, which strengthens my engagement and further reduces my awareness of time passing. This model made it clear why the habit feels difficult to break, because it is self-perpetuating. It also suggested to me that effective intervention requires disrupting the loop at specific pointsÇ: changing the environment or reducing frictionless access, instead of relying just on intention or awareness. Also, my 4 different loops represent different starting points and reasons for this behavior and different causal behavioral chains for each starting point. Through this, I wanted to depict different contributors to the habit.
Model 2: Fishbone Diagram
The fishbone diagram allowed me to deconstruct my scrolling habit into the multiple underlying factors that collectively contribute to it. Instead of framing the behavior as a lack of self-control like we read in the article, my model showed how app design such as infinite scroll, environmental context like being alone or in bed, technology such as phone proximity and notifications, and internal states like fatigue and boredom all converge to produce the same result. This model helped me see the habit as the result of an ecosystem optimized for engagement, rather than a single bad choice. As a result, it sort of shifted my thinking from “How do I stop scrolling?” to “Which parts of the system can I realistically change?”
Main Learnings:
The habit is highly context-dependent and it appears most when I am tired and unstructured.
App design plays a huge role: the lack of stopping cues makes disengagement difficult such as TikTok and Instagram’s format. Me reaching my iPhone’s social media time limit is easily ignored as I press “ignore”.
Scrolling serves a function like stress relief and mental escape, not just distraction.
Awareness alone helped slightly, but did not stop the behavior at all.
What I Would Do Differently Next Time:
Track the habit for more days to see weekday vs. weekend differences.
Measure emotional state before and after scrolling more explicitly.
Experiment with small environmental changes (phone out of bed, dark mode, app limits) to test which intervention breaks the loop most effectively.
Compare scrolling behavior to an alternative (music or reading) to see which needs the habit is truly serving.
