“I Don’t Even Remember What I Read”: How Design Influences Dissociation on Social Media

Many people have experienced mindlessly scrolling on social media. We investigated these experiences through the lens of normative dissociation: total cognitive absorption, characterized by diminished self-awareness and reduced sense of agency. To explore user experiences of normative dissociation and how design affects the likelihood of normative dissociation, we deployed Chirp, a custom Twitter client, to 43 U.S. participants. Experience sampling and interviews revealed that sometimes, becoming absorbed in normative dissociation on social media felt like a beneficial break. However, people also reported passively slipping into normative dissociation, such that they failed to absorb any content and were left feeling like they had wasted their time. We found that designed interventions–including custom lists, reading history labels, time limit dialogs, and usage statistics–reduced normative dissociation. Our findings demonstrate that interaction designs intended to capture attention likely do so by harnessing people’s natural inclination to seek normative dissociation experiences. This suggests that normative dissociation may be a more productive framing than addiction for discussing social media overuse.