“Below the fold” Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love scrolling.

Are you having scroll anxiety? Are you worried users aren’t seeing anything… you know… down there? Fear not friends. Let’s revisit the old “Above the fold” discussion.

The idea that critical content must live in that first screenful of real estate has haunted web designers and marketers for decades. But as user behavior evolved from desktop mice to thumb-scrolling smartphones to AI-powered browsing agents, our understanding of the “fold” has had to evolve with it. Let’s walk through where this anxiety came from, where we stand today, and what the future is likely to demand from the way we structure digital experiences.

Back in the old days when computers had bulky, curved screens and getting online meant strange noises and helping family locate the power button or showing them how to use this weird peripheral called a “mouse”. This unfamiliarity with the technology of the time was what we in the UX world call “affordances” and this case there was a lack thereof.

In other words, when you see a door, you don’t stop and try to figure out how the doorknob works, you just do it without thinking about it. (Doors have been around for a while so we don’t worry too much about their affordances).

But web pages and mice were relatively new to the uninitiated, and the rollout of the World Wide Web was happening with or without us. This caused a trend of major websites trying to put as much as possible above the fold because users may not even know what scrolling is!

Over time the average user became more accustomed to using mice and browsing webpages. Then came this thing called an “iPhone” and users could suddenly flick their thumbs and scroll scroll scroll. Scrolling went from being not-a-given to an affordance. And because of this, the entire basis for the “above the fold” orthodoxy quietly shifted, but the anxiety stuck around.

Fast forward to the present. Do people scroll?

And HOW.
In 2026 the market cap of social media companies is expected to grow to $234 billion (that’s with a B). A massive portion of their algorithm and business model is getting people to scroll scroll scroll the hours away to keep those eyeballs on ads. Some users scroll so instinctively, so automatically that they often scroll back up to the top.

However…  the fact that people can scroll doesn’t mean they always will. Context matters..

We now have the tools that can help us discover if people are scrolling. Analytics and user testing allows us to see if people are seeing what we want them to see in the order that’s best for their end goal. Tools like heatmaps, scroll depth tracking, and session recordings let us observe what people actually do, not just what we assume they do. And what we see is nuanced: scroll behavior depends heavily on why someone is on a site and what we expect them to do there.

There are a few big elements that determine a user’s “likeliness to scroll”:

In the present, we have a lot of do’s and dont’s that can help us navigate our questions about the fold:

It’s hard to say exactly what the future holds, but we can be sure the following items hold true:

Scroll anxiety is understandable, but it’s largely a relic of a different era of the web. Here’s what this journey through past, present, and future tells us:

Ready to rethink how your digital presence performs? Whether you’re navigating a site overhaul, a content strategy refresh, or a full digital transformation, we’d love to help.