I just saw a coworker with something like 30 tabs open in Chrome. I also know someone who regularly hits the 500-tab limit on their phone, though I suspect that’s more about being messy than anything else.
When I’m researching something, I might have 10-50 tabs open for a while, but once I’m done, I close them all. If I need them again, browser history is there.
Why do people keep so many tabs open? Is there a workflow or habit I’m missing? Do they just never clean up, or is there a real benefit to tab hoarding? I’m genuinely curious. Why do people do that?
ADHD.
Surprisingly many people have brought that up. Probably not a coincidence. Maybe that’s the thing I didn’t think of.
People with ADHD (I speak from experience) have shitty working memory, poor organisational skills, are easily distracted, and a tendancy to procrasate.
Therefore you start researching something for work/uni (4tabs) I’ll come back to that after a little YouTube break (+3tabs) I’ll watch those videos later I need to get back to work (+4 tabs that are duplicates of the first 4). Time for home, when do I need to catch the bus (+1) and the first 12 tabs will just stay open till the next day because you know you won’t remember what you were doing.