Why you have so many tabs open
Tab-hoarding happens for the same reason we attempt to multi-task, or we scroll Twitter when we’re watching TV: We like to have multiple stimuli available at all times.
It’s a protection against boredom. We open a new tab of fun, or information, or as a means of productivity, and we feel like we’re doing something, whether that’s enjoyable or for work purposes. We get rewarded with online content, so we keep doing it… until we notice we’ve got so many tabs open we can’t even see what each one is.
We overestimate what our brains are capable of.
Having a bunch of tabs open is a digital way of us task-switching, and it’s the ultimate form of distraction. We may think that while we’re focused on one tab, we can block out all the others that are open. But in truth they’re still there, in the corner of our eye and taking up mental energy. Dr Daria Kuss, the course leader of Cyberpsychology at Nottingham Trent University, tells Metro.co.uk: ‘Having lots of tabs open can potentially result in information overload – whereby multitasking is requested, which may be difficult to handle by the human brain, and rather than creating efficiency, switching frequently between tasks may lead to short attention spans and a lack of depth in the ongoing tasks.’
I’ll quickly ditch the tab I’m working on to check another flashing with a notification, then find myself having a look at what’s going on over on Twitter, then open some more tabs when I spot things I want to read, before finally returning to my working tab, my ‘flow’ shattered.
Dr Kuss notes that there are two opposing reasons we keep loads of tabs open: to be efficient and ‘create a multi-source and multi-topic context for the task at hand’, or as a form of procrastination, ‘the additional online article to read, one more video to watch’. A problem many tab-hoarders face is the blurring of those two purposes. You might have a bunch of tabs you actually need, a lot you don’t, and soon the number is so immense that you can’t tell the difference between the two.
Marc Hekster, Consultant Clinical Psychologist at The Summit Clinic, explains: ‘Our computers/phones have become an extension of our brain. They have become an adjunct to our memory, or our creative source. ‘The tabs are another version of our working memory. We treat our computers as if they have an unlimited capacity, just like we treat our brain. ‘But when we overload our brain, we become tired, forgetful, irritable. When we overload tabs, the page slows down, and the computer/phone may be less efficient. ‘[When] we forget to close tabs, they use up our working memory. ‘Keep the tab open, it will always be there. So we see a certain emotional greed, an underestimating of our own (and our computer’s) limitations.’
Having Too Many Tabs Open Can Actually Have An Impact On Your Focus & Mood
Most of us know that clutter doesn't make us feel good. When you get home to your apartment at the end of a long day, only to find that your roommate didn't do any of the dishes she said she would, the messiness only compounds your annoyance at having to deal with it. The same principle applies to your digital life, too: specifically, having too many tabs open in your browser. Yes, you feel productive AF for getting all that research done, on top of scrolling through social media and reading every single headline you get a push notification for, but that digital clutter can have a very real impact on your focus and your mood.
As CNN reported in 2016, one survey found adults in the U.S. spend close to eleven hours a day on their laptops, smartphone, or other devices (a number that has almost certainly grown, as projected, over the past two years). So basically, for many of us, our laptops and phones are virtual spaces we spend just as much time "in" as our homes and offices — whether it's time spent emailing people, working, or scrolling through social media.
"I see open tabs as a reflection of our routine, lifestyle and interests," therapist and founder of She is Strong and Mindful, Lorena Ramos, MA, LCSW, tells Bustle. "Many of my clients find themselves immersed in an ocean of information and choices, but having many tabs open on your computer can be overwhelming and tiring at times."
"We know our computers slow down with too many opened tabs, and don’t work as quickly. This is a perfect analogy how our bodies work, and what happens if we are going in a million different directions," Dr. Elizabeth Trattner, a Chinese and Integrative Medicine expert, tells Bustle. "Energy flowing in too many directions makes us ungrounded, and unfocused."
One tab challenge
This has become such a known problem that people are announcing it as a challenge to spend a certain amount of time with only one tab open as opposed to the numerous they would normally choose to have open.
Yes, yes, yes. Instead of flicking through tabs at the speed of light, causing my brain to multitask on 800 things at once, I started to slow down and pay more attention to what I was actually trying to accomplish. Three other things happened:
More Focus. It forced me to stop having videos playing in the background while I was working (a bad habit of mine). Even though we tell ourselves these things aren’t distracting us, they really are.
More Progress. I was able to get things like blog posts written quicker because I was focused on the task at hand, rather than writing a sentence then hopping over to another website and getting sucked into a distraction-wormhole.
Less Noise. I got a lot better at discerning within 10 seconds what was going to be quality content and what wouldn’t be worth reading. Instead of instantly trying to read every article I came across, I took a moment to ask myself if seemed to be worth my time. If it was, I added it to Pocket! If not, I closed that sucker.
Research has found that a browser with so many tabs that you can barely see the favicon is a stressful, productivity-killing time suck. One study from 2014 analysed how poorly-organised computer screens affected physicians’ response times and productivity in emergency rooms. It found that cluttered screens increased the time it took for doctors to find medical records as well as how long it took to scan and identify needed information within those records. If a doctor was already stressed, the negative effects became even more pronounced.
Solutions:
- one tab
- pocket
- toby
- evernote
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