What does the feed refresh cost from age 30 to 65?
The Feed Refresh
12 minutes, daily, age 30 to 65 — the long-term cost is 106 days.
How the number's built.
Social media feeds are designed to offer variable rewards, prompting frequent checks to see if anything new has appeared. But scrolling for twelve minutes daily over thirty-five years accumulates to 2,555 hours. That is 106 full days of attention given to real-time feeds.
Three checks daily, not six.
53 days of attention recovered.
No rush. It keeps until you want it.
refreshing feeds three times daily instead of six
saves 6 minutes / day = 36.5 hours / year
× 35 years = 1,277.5 hours
÷ 24 = 53 days recovered
12 minutes / day
365 days / year = 73 hours / year
× 35 years = 2,555 total hours
÷ 24 hours/day = 106 days
The lifetime attention cost of social feed refreshes
Last reviewed: May 2026.
An estimate built for reflection — not financial, medical, or legal advice. The figures follow the assumptions above.