Comment on Why do some people have so many tabs open on their browser?
EtherWhack@lemmy.world 1 day ago
For me, it more boils down to keeping my place within a web page or ever-updating feed.
For instance… If I’m going down a rabbit hole, I could have 4 root tabs open. Those tabs may have lengthy articles and would reference secondary sites throughout the page. Rather then having a good chance of the browser losing my place down the page by clicking on a link normally, I open it in a new tab. This allows me to switch to it, skim down to where it was referenced to understand that part of it, then switch back to the root tab while leaving the secondary tab open to fully read through when I finish with the root one. As the rabbit hole deepens, those secondary tabs may eventually become root tabs which may also reference their own secondary sites or even each other. The number of tabs just keeps growing until I either run out of those secondary tabs or I am just satisfied with the amount of info I gained. This can also happen over several days or weeks and have other rabbit holes open at the same time.
TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Yeah that makes a lot of sense too. That sort of forking is very common, especially when reading Wikipedia articles. Occasionally I have several wikipedia tabs open, but once I’ve drilled down deep enough, I lose interest, and close all of those tabs.
When researching any topic, it’s really common to have lots of tabs open, but I always close them as soon as they have served their purpose. I guess that’s the key difference here. Actually that difference is interesting. Why do I lose interest so quickly or why do you keep yours open for several days or even weeks?
Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 2 hours ago
Not OP, but many topics last longer than a week.
I’m not going to finish Factorio in a week, and my collection of tabs on factorioLab, sheets, drawio, and the wiki are both interrelated and mark the several projects I have going. That’s also a topic that would be very annoying to reopen every week, and also would lead to bookmark clutter as most of those tabs will get closed when the projects are finished.
There’s also research tabs for things that will come up later. I have 6 open right now for configuring a smart home system that won’t get opened until I can actually see the system in person, but I don’t know when that will happen.
And there’s also long running series, like text stories, podcasts, or youtube series. That would be a nightmare to update bookmarks for, but those tabs will track progress just fine.
I suppose I keep tabs exactly because I want to keep interest for weeks, but I know I’ll forget all the details between sessions.