If you’re anything like us, you probably have countless tabs of webpages open on your browser right now. Aside from Facebook and your email, there is literally everything in between – from that article you were meant to read the day before, a new recipe you want to try, to that list of apps you have been meaning to download.
It’s an eyesore Marie Kondo would definitely disapprove of and yet we just can’t seem to click on the “X” button to get rid of the tabs once and for all, let alone bookmark them into folders. So, why does this happen? It’s similar to multi-tasking and has essentially been called “task switching”.
It’s almost as if you’re protecting yourself against boredom and are attempting to satiate your various needs and urges, which is why you most likely have tabs for work, shopping and also mindless fun. The biggest drawback of task switching though is that not everyone is good at multi-tasking.
Instead, having a thousand tabs open can become overwhelming, leading to a potential information overload, thus resulting in short attention span and a lack of focus on ongoing tasks at hand. It increases the risk of distraction and if anything, it quells efficiency and productivity. That’s the danger of tabs.
On that note, it’s like internet FOMO. While our brain does have unlimited capacity, often times it cannot be overloaded and has its limitations. Hence, take a deep breath and click on that “X” button. There’s a 99.99 percent chance you’ll be doing yourself a huge favour.
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