Microprocessing
Browser Tabs Are Ruining Your Brain
Here’s what to do about it
In Microprocessing, columnist Angela Lashbrook aims to improve your relationship with technology every week. Microprocessing goes deep on the little things that define your online life today, to give you a better tomorrow.
The state of your browser is like the state of your kitchen: If the counters are cluttered with pots, pans, and dirty dishes, it’s going to be significantly more difficult to cook dinner than if you were getting started in a clean and tidy space.
Research has found that a browser with so many tabs that you can barely see the favicons is a stressful, productivity-killing time suck. One study from 2014 analyzed how poorly-organized 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.
