Trapped

Apps have made everything faster and easier, designed again, but we're now locked, often with

- Shephali Bhatt

Shagun Ohri likes to "doomscroll" on Blinkit—and she's not proud of it. It should take roughly five minutes to order groceries from the quick commerce platform. "But I'm spending another 30 just to see what else is there on the app," says the 31-year-old marketing director at a VC fund in Bengaluru. "It's like scrolling through Instagram...half an hour disappears before you know it."

Ohri is experiencing the "30-minute ick factor." Coined by Alexis Hiniker, a computer researcher at the University of Washington, US, the phrase describes the "wave of disgust or disappointment people feel when they realize they've spent over half an hour on a platform they meant to check only briefly". It's a classic symptom of "time-loss design" found largely on social media platforms. Or e-commerce apps that tend to recommend related products once you've added something to the cart, instead of taking you directly to the checkout. Ohri is concerned she's now experiencing it on a quick commerce app, too.

It's not just a time sink, it's costing her money, too. She orders groceries from the app roughly thrice a week, but the doomscrolling nearly doubles her bill every time. Fairy lights, a table runner, coasters, a plant—just to confirm the app really delivers plants—have all found their way into her cart through this route. Even a vacuum cleaner.

"You think this is better than mindless doomscrolling on Instagram because it's adding value to your life in some way, but it ends up increasing material consumption," she says.

It all started last October around Diwali, when Blinkit expanded beyond groceries. Ohri was curious. Items that once took three days to arrive via online shopping, could now show up in three minutes; the platform's "dark store" is only 700 meters from her apartment, she tells us.