This is Scroll Breaker, a proof-of-concept project that intends to turn a recommender system, which is the data-driven mechanism by which social media engages users (and sometimes makes them addicted), on itself.

Essentially, the idea is to make a social media account that posts messages that help people get off social media. If people find these messages useful, and like them, then the recommender system will recommend them, which will cause people to get off social media, lessening the power of the recommender system itself.

The content of the Scroll Breaker posts are based on the idea that one who is scrolling might ask “is this what I want to be doing?” This is a mindful question that would occasionally bubble up when I was using social media, and it would help me to get off my device.

To give some variety, ChatGPT (OpenAI) is used. I gave it the thought above as an example, and then asked it to make similar messages.

The code is here and the prompts are here. Please feel free to make your own Scroll Breaker account on other platforms—the more, the better.

Feel free to follow Scroll Breakers on X, Bluesky, and Instagram. I do not post much, it is a lot of work (if you happen to be good at writing bots, please get in touch—I have looked into automating Scroll Breaker on X, but I did not have enough time to get it working)!

Inspirations for this project include Jonathan Haidt, Jonathan Stray, and Thich Nhat Hanh.