The Scroll-O-Meter is a fitbit for your digital life, tracking how many miles you scroll. Sarah and I made a Chrome Extension which adds a little jogger that runs along the periphery of the screen as you scroll, encouraging you scroll further and faster. It also displays how far you’ve scrolled in miles. At that time that I’m writing this, I’ve scrolled 46.5 miles.

It was a challenge to accurately track real-world distance from the pixel data, since nearly all displays have different resolutions and pixel densities. My approach was to compare the user’s screen size and dpi against a database of screens to determine the most likely width and height of the screen in inches. From there, I could calculate how many pixels were in an inch on that user’s display.

To accompany the Chrome Extension, Sarah and I made a simple website which plays a MIDI’ized version of Vangelis’ Chariots of Fire as you scroll.