Agreed. My rule of thumb is: if it takes enough more than a second to figure out why I had the tab open, then I might as well just close it and re-open it if the need to have it available reemerges. It takes a lot of effort (several seconds and a lot of mental energy) to create the mental context that I need to make use of the tab. On the other hand, opening it takes a few seconds and requires little to no thought whatsoever.
So I just close them. In fact, having too many tabs open just makes it take longer to find the open tabs that I’m actually currently using.
Both of my parents are/were notorious for leaving roughly 655489357 tabs open at a time. I get stressed if I have more than a couple at a time. We’re boomers/a millennial, respectively. But it could also be a result of my severe anxiety. Who knows?
I think my whole family uses few tabs. For me, once I can’t read the titles easily, I start splitting them into separate windows and virtual desktops. Once I finish a task associated with a window I close it
If I’m not actively using a tab, I’ll close it, unless I’m working on a longer term project. Right now I’m planning a fairly long trip to South America, so I’ve had several travel sites up for multiple weeks.
My ex and I were the same age and totally different on this. I open tabs, close them, don’t leave any open long term. She’d have Safari open with dozens or hundreds as far as I could tell. But I operate like an older millennial and she has the sensibilities of a boomer - TV on 18 hours a day, etc
It particularly drives me insane. I've known people of that age to act super worried if they go somewhere and there's not a TV they can have on. My ex would call it 'background noise' which is exactly what I don't want... annoying and repetitive commercials, concerning and distracting news broadcasts, fictional people engaged in trauma - why not some music? or silence? I've also wondered, what's the psychology of having dialogue playing on a loudspeaker all day and just tuning it out? I pointed out to her that no wonder she seemed to have a hard time listening to me in conversation when she has trained herself to hear people talking all day and not pay any attention to what they're saying. Leaving TVs on when nobody is watching them seems really improper to me too.
No more than around 10, I actively try to keep the number of tabs I have in check. Sometimes I quit the browser and reopen tabs again as a way clear my head.
… although you just reminded me I have another tab open in a separate window, and 4 more open in a private window. I’ll close those windows once I stop working on them though.
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