Reasons Why We Open Many Tabs on a Computer

Do you have many tabs open on the computer right now? Whether it's the news you want to read later, the podcast episode you want to listen to, or just a variety of e-mail accounts, and social media.

It's not just about feeling like we're finishing something. Opening various tabs also serves as a protection against boredom.

Having dozens of open tabs allows us to pretend we always do something, or at least we always do something. Maybe this is also driven by fear of losing information.

Quoted from Travel and Leisure, you are worried that you will miss important updates if you close the social media feed or the email account or news article. As a result, you will never close anything.

But this can cause excessive information. Even when you think you only focus on one window (tab), seeing all open tabs in the corner of the eye depletes mental energy and diverts you from the task at hand.

Based on multitasking studies, the tendency to open multiple tabs can actually change your brain. Some studies have found that heavy multitasker may perform worse on a variety of cognitive tests than people who don't try to consume media at such a frenzied pace.

Just like your brain, your browser and computer can only handle so much information at one time. To optimize the performance of your browser, Lifehacker recommends at most nine tabs that are open at once. With nine or fewer tabs, you can see all that is open at a glance.

You can use keyboard shortcuts to navigate between them. Of course someone might need a lot of tabs open at one time.

Daria Kuss, a senior lecturer specializing in cyber psychology at Nottingham Trent University, told Metro there are two opposite reasons why we open many tabs.

First, to be efficient. Second, make many topics for the work being done.

In the end, it's all about accepting our limits (and computers). When in doubt, there is no harm in all the tabs.

If you really want to go back there, everything is stored in your browser history. If you are an endless tab opener, there are also browser extensions like OneTab, which shrink all of your open tabs into a single link window so you can come back later.