scroll hole
/skroʊl hoʊl/
CommonA rabbit hole you fall into while scrolling, losing track of time without meaning to.
Similar to rabbit hole but specific to social media feeds. The word scroll emphasizes that the feed pulled you in, not a deliberate search.
| # | Example | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | went to check one thing and fell into a scroll hole for 2 hours. send help | An intended quick check turned into an unintentional long scrolling session. | x, 2024 |
| 02 | deep in a tiktok scroll hole about people who live on boats. it's 2am | The algorithm served increasingly niche content and the person kept watching into the night. | tiktok, 2023 |
| 03 | reddit scroll hole at 1am: started on gaming, ended on victorian funeral customs | The feed led the person far from where they started through a chain of suggested content. | reddit, 2022 |
| 04 | i set a timer to avoid the scroll hole. still managed to ignore it three times | An attempt to limit scrolling that failed because the feed was too engaging. | instagram, 2024 |
Use it when
- You opened an app briefly and lost a long chunk of time to scrolling.
- Someone ended up in an unexpected part of a feed after starting somewhere unrelated.
- Describing the experience of unintentionally absorbed time on a social platform.
Do not use it when
- You mean doing deep research or reading deliberately.Use “rabbit hole” instead.
Scroll hole vs rabbit hole
scroll hole
A scroll hole is passive: the feed pulls you somewhere unexpected.
rabbit-hole
A rabbit hole is often more deliberate: you click and search your way deeper into a topic.
Scroll hole vs infinite scroll
scroll hole
A scroll hole is the experience of falling into a feed and losing time.
infinite-scroll
Infinite scroll is the design mechanism that makes that possible.
Origin and context
An organic internet term that emerged as short-form video feeds, particularly TikTok, became dominant in the early 2020s. Built on the older rabbit hole metaphor but specific to passive feed scrolling.
- First seen
- early-2020s
- Confidence
- low
Cite this page
Use this stable URL to reference the entry.
https://slang.fyi/scroll-hole