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Study reveals that some coping strategies only make the problem worse:
Five billion people spend almost half of their waking hours online. According to a new study from Aalto University, browser clutter is a serious problem for one in four of them. The results will be presented on April 27 at CHI 2023, the leading conference for human-computer interaction research.
'We began exploring which challenges make users feel overwhelmed when browsing the internet. We also mapped the behaviors that cause the clutter and how users react to the stress,' says Associate Professor and Head of Department Janne Lindqvist.
Browsing habits play a major role in cluttering up a browser. Using interviews and an online survey, the researchers found that clutter-related stress goes up when users keep a large number of tabs and browser windows open, as well as because of interactive elements like ads and pop-up windows.
Multitasking adds to the problem, and it gets worse if users are hesitant to close tabs or are dealing with complex tasks. Clutter also accumulates when users have tabs open related to different online activities – for example, if they're managing a travel reservation in one tab and chatting with friends or colleagues in another.
[...] The study found that many users react to stress by trying to change either their behavior or their attitude towards the clutter. Only the former, problem-focused solutions, proved helpful in solving the issue. An example solution would be to consciously minimize clutter by deciding on an upper limit to the number of tabs you have open.
[...] The researchers pointed out that 'organizing' techniques, such as using tools to manage tabs, might just lead to more clutter. 'These approaches are similar to someone not actually cleaning but just rearranging things in the same space – the problem doesn't go away,' says Lindqvist.
[...] 'We use computers every day, and it's definitely not always ideal. Many things would actually be much better handled only on paper,' he says. 'I look at this from the point of view of how we can live a meaningful and good life despite computers.'
How many tabs do you have open right now?
Journal Reference:
Rongjun Ma, Henrik Lassila, Leysan Nurgalieva, Janne Lindqvist, When Browsing Gets Cluttered: Exploring and Modeling Interactions of Browsing Clutter, Browsing Habits, and Coping [open], CHI '23: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2023 https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3580690
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday May 17, @02:23PM
NOTE: mostly off topic of browsers, until the very end
Similar here. Classic Mac developer. I knew nothing about PCs or PC hardware. Fortunately I did know that all PC manufacturers hire people to sharpen the edges of all metal parts inside the PC to ensure you will cut your hands if you open up the PC and try to change anything. Macs were lacking this innovation. On a Mac you could open the case and swap out almost anything with no tools but your bare hands.
I started in June 1999. Found a place that would sell me a PC at a reasonably competitive price with Red Hat installed.
Turns out I just could not stomach FVWM95 nor the RPM hell. I couldn't even get video to play in those days. That's okay because I kept my PowerMac 7600 for a few more years but found myself using Linux more and more and the Mac less and less.
A friend suggested that I try SuSE. So I did. Never looked back. It was a lot easier for a newbie. A few years later I knew a lot more but I tried Ubuntu and really liked that. Until they stopped having a conventional desktop that everyone on the planet knows how to use. It's like making a new car with unconventional controls. A steering tiller. A button on the ceiling to slow down or stop the vehicle. Etc.
I was a huge KDE fan until KDE 4. Somehow after that, I just never found my way back to KDE again, although I've tried it a few times and liked it. Konqueror did give me an alternative browser to Netscape. (Remember the days before Firefox existed?)
The one thing consistent through it all was the amazing stability of Linux.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.