Fleeting Attention While Scrolling: Dwell Time and Exposure in Social Media Feeds

Social media feeds present users with a rapid stream of posts, but little is known about how attention is distributed across content while scrolling. This study investigates attention during passive social media use using detailed behavioural log data collected from a simulated,Instagram-like platform. More precisely, we recorded fine-grained measures of dwell time, navigation, and engagement. Analysing over 42,000 image-viewing episodes across more than 1,000 browsing sessions, we show that attention in feed environments is fleeting, with most posts viewed for less than a second and only a small minority receiving sustained attention. Variability in dwell time was primarily attributable to individual differences rather than to systematic content features, contextual factors, or social reinforcement cues. Attention declined over the course of browsing sessions, with longer dwell times occurring during deliberate exploration or overt interaction. These findings suggest that everyday social media use consists largely of momentary micro-exposures rather than sustained message processing. By documenting the temporal constraints under which attention unfolds during scrolling, this study provides descriptive foundations for more realistic theories of exposure and media effects and illustrates the value of simulated platforms for high-resolution analyses of attention in digital environments.