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A citizen-led movement, starting in India
Your attention is your life.
REELFREE NATION examines what the evidence says about algorithmically driven, infinite-scroll video feeds — and argues for protections built on evidence, not alarm.
Less scrolling. More living.
The loop is the product.
Short-video feeds are not accidental. Their most familiar features are deliberate design decisions, and they are worth examining in the open.
One swipe becomes another.Another becomes an hour.
Infinite scroll
The feed has no end and no natural stopping point. Nothing marks where a session was meant to finish.
Autoplay
The next video begins on its own. Continuing requires no decision; stopping requires one.
Recommendation
The order is chosen by a system optimised to hold attention, and it adapts to whatever holds yours.
Evidence first, argument second.
A structured, public record of what research actually shows — including where it is uncertain, contested or simply not yet available.
What we are examining
- Attention9 studies
How sustained focus is measured, and what happens to it under frequent, short, highly stimulating content.
- Mental wellbeing5 studies
Stress, anxiety and low mood, and how they relate to different patterns of use.
- Sleep3 studies
Timing, duration and quality of sleep in relation to late-night and pre-sleep device use.
- Youth wellbeing7 studies
How children and young people use these products, and where protections are most warranted.
- Education2 studies
Study habits, classroom concentration and the conditions under which learning is disrupted or supported.
- Digital behaviour14 studies
Usage patterns, self-reported difficulty stopping, and how people describe their own habits.
- Algorithmic recommendation1 study
How ranking systems select content, what they optimise for, and what can be observed from outside.
- Addictive design3 studies
Design patterns associated with compulsive use, and the evidence for and against each claim.
Recently added
- Digital gratification: short video consumption and mental health in rural China
Longitudinal cohort, 2025, China — Zhang, C.; Zhu, B.
- Association of Short-Form Video Use With Attention Control and Sleep Quality Among Medical Students: A Cross-Sectional Study
Cross-sectional, 2026 — Mohammed, B. A.; Allampally, S.; Sadanandam, P. et al.
- Attentional impulsivity, short-form video use and adolescents’ school misbehaviors: mediating role of parental media mediation
Cross-sectional, 2026, China — Li, L.; Jia, C. X.
We publish no figure we can’t show you the source for.
What experts say
Doctors and researchers, in their own words, with every source linked.
The entire burden of mitigating the risk of harm of social media cannot be placed on the shoulders of children and parents.
Dr Vivek H. Murthy
U.S. Surgeon General (at the time of the 2023 advisory), Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, United States
News article: US surgeon general issues major advisory on social media use and teens' mental health (ABC7 San Francisco), 23 May 2023
From his May 2023 advisory on social media and youth mental health, calling on technology companies and policymakers to share responsibility.
Photo: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
When we talk more, the story is often the same late nights on the phone, gaming for hours, scrolling before sleep. The child is not weak or careless. The child is tired.
Dr Meghana Phadke Sultania
Senior Consultant and Head, Unit III – Pediatrics and Adolescent Health, Asian Hospital, India
News article: Economic Survey's focus on digital addiction, mental health is timely and necessary: Experts (The News Mill, ANI copy), 29 January 2026
A paediatrician describing what she sees in clinic, reacting to the Economic Survey 2025-26 on digital addiction in children.
Built by the people it affects.
REELFREE NATION is citizen-led. It depends on people who see this closely enough to describe it accurately.
What is at stake
Students
The ability to focus, study, and finish what you start.
Parents
Healthier habits at home, built on something better than guesswork.
Teachers
Attention in the classroom, and the support schools need to protect it.
Researchers
Evidence held to a standard — including when it does not hold.
Citizens
Technology that serves people, and a say in how it is designed.
Teachers, counsellors and principals: see the free, ready-made lesson for your school.
Regulate the mechanism, not the speech.
Our objection is to a design pattern and the incentives behind it — not to short video, not to creators, and not to anyone's right to publish or watch.
Protect children first. Prove the rest.
REELFREE NATION advocates for evidence-based regulation of algorithmically driven, infinite-scroll short-form video feeds, with particular protection for children and young people.
How we label what we publish
- Fact
- Verifiable information.
- Research finding
- What a study reports.
- Interpretation
- Our analysis of the evidence.
- Opinion
- A viewpoint.
- Policy position
- What we ask governments or platforms to do.
Three things worth doing.
A small number of meaningful actions, not a wall of buttons. Two of these are open now; the third opens when its methodology and privacy review are complete.
Attention is something we can choose to reclaim.
Explore the evidence
Read what we are examining and how we intend to hold it to a standard. The research library is being built in the open, and its structure is published before its contents.
Take the survey
A national survey on how short video fits into daily life. It will be anonymous by design, and its questionnaire, consent language, retention period and statistical method will be published before it collects a single response.
In preparationHow the survey will work