From home pages to infinite feeds: how contemporary web rewrote our habits

If there is one trait that defines today’s web, it is ubiquity: it’s no longer a place we “go” to in order to get information or buy things — it’s the connective tissue that accompanies every daily gesture, from the alarm clock to contactless payments, from hybrid work to free time fragmented into micro-sessions on the smartphone. Numbers and research converge: more than five and a half billion people are online and more than five billion seven hundred million use a mobile phone, with social platforms exceeding five billion active identities. It is not just user growth: the reasons why people connect — and the formats they consume — are changing, with information seeking, sociality and short-form video as recurring drivers.

Getting informed wherever we happen to be (and often on social media)

The information diet has structurally shifted: engagement with traditional channels goes down, while dependence on social platforms, video and aggregators rises. In 2025 the major report by the Reuters Institute also captures the arrival of AI chatbots as a source, especially among younger audiences, in a context where overall trust in the news system is stable but not high, and concern about disinformation and influencer-journalism is widespread. In various European markets podcasts remain a niche, while TikTok, YouTube and Facebook weigh more and more in news access.

This shift has practical effects on our habits: news is no longer something we “look for”, it finds us in the feed; notifications become the first screen of the day; headlines condense into a card; context gets lost between one scroll and the next. European and national regulators respond with new standards and oversight of the online ecosystem, but the asymmetry between feed speed and verification remains a central knot.

Screens, formats and time: the rule of “here and now”

Total video time remains high, but it is recalibrated: linear viewing continues to erode, while on-demand grows (or stabilizes at high level), and TV screen coexists with mobile screen. 2025 Ofcom data show a decline in traditional broadcast, increasingly “first choice” use of subscription services among children and young adults, and strong penetration of YouTube, with short-form competing for the first slot in preferences. It is yet another confirmation that consumption is distributed across short and multi-platform sessions, with no mandatory evening rituals.

At the same time, major global syntheses (DataReportal / We Are Social) indicate that the “reason” for using the internet is multiplying again: not just conversation or entertainment, but also brand discovery, shopping, work, education, health. And, while the average number of platforms used goes up, the daily time spent on social has slightly decreased compared to two years ago: a sign that attention is a finite resource, and users jump more consciously between apps and services.

Italy: between regulation and new digital consumption (rewritten for foreign reader)

In the Italian case, the institutional picture shows a highly integrated ecosystem, where connectivity, OTT platforms, e-commerce logistics and digital media form a supply chain in which the national authority (AGCOM) intersects consumer protection, competition and quality of service. The 2025 Annual Report — which covers activity between May 2024 and April 2025 — frames this transition and its impacts on markets, users and pluralism, confirming the central role of oversight over the online information space, in continuity with the European approach but with normative peculiarities specific to the Italian framework.

From leisure to gaming: portals, platforms and a new digital etiquette

Digital leisure has exploded in different directions. On one side short video and music/podcast streaming; on the other, gaming has moved from “product” to “environment”: people play on console, PC and especially mobile, often in persistent and cross-device communities. 2025 Newzoo estimates speak of a global market close to 189 billion dollars and an audience of 3.6 billion players, with moderate growth after the pandemic peaks and an overabundant supply that makes attention the real bottleneck. Even the industry rethinks release calendars to avoid cannibalization in crowded periods.

Within this perimeter, online gaming portals have become complex “hubs”: unified accounts, ID and age control, limits and usage-time dashboards, digital wallets and security measures. In Italy only authorized entities supervised by the Customs and Monopolies Agency (ADM) operate, with 2025 technical guidelines updated for platform certification and verification systems. It is an architecture that puts transparency, traceability and safeguards at the center, especially when the same portal hosts multiple game sections, from casual games to licensed casino sites, within an experience that must remain clear, verified and under control.

The battle for attention (and quality)

Contemporary web has not only multiplied possibilities; it has multiplied supply beyond our capacity to absorb it. The result is “super-abundance”: thousands of new titles on digital stores, never-ending feeds, competing notifications. For publishers this means optimizing formats, timing and notifications; for content and game creators, rethinking discovery and release cadence; for users, training critical selection — who to follow, when to mute, how to set limits and healthy routines.

AI everywhere, but with care

Generative AI has slipped into everyday use as a tool for search, drafting, synthesis and recommendation. In journalism the adoption is observed with interest and caution: users expect efficiency but fear the effect on trust; 2025 reports highlight users more skeptical toward “automated” news and, in general, discomfort linked to misinformation circulating on platforms. Again, the answer can only be multi-level: transparency of use by publishers, continuous digital literacy, and clear public standards.

And now?

We moved from the era of the “portal” to the era of the feed — in which every experience is modular, personalized and potentially infinite. For citizens, the challenge is to rebuild intentionality: create notification-free spaces, consciously choose sources, understand when one short is enough and when longform is needed. For organizations it means designing services that respect human cognitive and temporal limits, measuring not just time spent but perceived value. For regulators, it means continuing to oversee competition, protection of minors, safety and quality of information while innovation runs fast. A mature web is not the one that captures more minutes, but the one that returns more meaning.