Fast Company
Key takeaways from The twisted psychology of browser tabs—and why we can’t get rid of them
New research proves that it’s not just you: Browser tabs are scientifically terrible.
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People are attached to tabs because they view them as opportunities,” says Kittur. “They’re kind of like opportunities for a better life: gathering more knowledge, getting a better job, becoming enlightened. People are queuing up these things and hoping to get to them because no one likes to lose out on opportunities.” And when you close a tab that you’ve yet to consume, that opportunity seems lost forever.
Kittur’s team discovered all sorts of common, repeated reasons that people couldn’t close their tabs. They needed tabs to lighten their mental load, to serve as a digital memory. They needed some information for quick reference again and again. But the largest common takeaway came down to a phenomenon core to human psychology, and one that sums up my own reluctance to close a tab (and probably yours, too). “People are attached to tabs because they view them as opportunities,” says Kittur. “They’re kind of like opportunities for a better life: gathering more knowledge, getting a better job, becoming enlightened. People are queuing up these things and hoping to get to them because no one likes to lose out on opportunities.” And when you close a tab that you’ve yet to consume, that opportunity seems lost forever.
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