Tab Lover
Apparently, there are a lot of people out there like me because I also just found an ode to open tabs. I leave tabs open on every browser.
The worst is my phone. When I hit 99 open tabs, I have to close down some of the collection, choosing between the things I write down in my bullet journal and close or leave open indefinitely. Some tabs have been open for 5+ years. But all tabs tell an intimate story of what was occupying my mind during a moment in time.
The time I became obsessed with Rex Whistler (that tab is still open), or wanted to learn Ogham, or needed to know the best beaches on the east coast for collecting sea glass. There are menus from restaurants and shoes I thought about buying but didn’t and so many different COVID-19 sites that compile daily stats.
I try to do a better job in limiting the number of tabs I leave open indefinitely on the computer browser. Every few months, I bookmark my tabs and close them. It feels so good to have a mostly empty (I only have 7 tabs open right now) browser. But it creeps back up after a day or two.
8 comments
Interesting. I make a concerted effort NOT to leave browser tabs open on my phone because I’ve been told that it eats up data and slows the functioning of the phone.
If I find something I want to keep/read later, I bookmark it or email the url to myself.
I am the opposite. I find open taps very distracting and overwhelming. Clutter. I do leave tabs open to remember to do things. For example right now I have a tab open that has a shopping cart with leggings for my daughter that I need to check out with. I will do this tonight but not if I don’t leave the tab open. And then I will close it.
My younger daughter leaves the max number of tabs open (or she did when she was in virtual school) and it caused me so much anxiety when I had to help her. But honestly that’s just her – I think her brain is filled with hundreds of open tabs and that’s how she functions best.
I have a million (OK, 70+) open tabs on my phone’s browser, but leave only 5 on my computer. I’m going to make all those things I have open someday! Or it’s the kid’s school or the humane society website or something else I use regularly.
I am so glad I’m not the only one. I thought having 29 tabs open on my phone was bad! (I have blogs – yours, and mine so I can easily find them on Microblog Mondays – my crossword puzzle page, recipes, info, restaurants etc etc.) My iPad is getting old, and periodically when I open Safari it has wiped all my tabs. And you know what? I cope with that! I do the same on my laptop – on my Firefox app I have 21 tabs and on Google (I use separate accounts on each browser) I only have eight. lol But when I need to reset the computer, or run a cleaning/virus program, I have to close them all. Which is a pain, because all those tabs are an aid to procrastination!
Oh my gosh I find this so interesting. I cannot handle leaving tabs open anywhere – I always shut everything down on every device. The iPads had a gazillion open tabs when the kids did virtual learning because the browser would open a tab every time they needed to log in, and any time I needed to use that browser I had to close all the tabs before I could function.
I don’t even like leaving Word documents open that I will be working on again the next day!
On my phone, I’m a bookmarked. I never have more than a few browser tabs or apps open. But I remember with my very first iPhone taking it to the Genius Bar bc it was slow and then being told it was bc I had so many tabs/apps open—I had never closed any or realized that they remained open unless I affirmatively closed them (I thought pushing the (RIP) home button was closing out an app) 😂 with computers, for many years I’ve been shutting them down (both work and home) at the end of the day so I don’t leave tabs open on those. But sometimes at work I have way too many emails open at once. Or PDFS when I’m reviewing docs.
I am an open-tab person, too! I get so sad when my computer crashes (because of all the open tabs, ha ha) and I have to start from scratch. At work I am notorious for tons of open tabs, but it’s how I manage my tasks in the day — I like to keep things open until I don’t need them anymore. Which is the most inefficient to-do list ever. I have been trying to get better about bookmarking things instead of leaving them open, though. For the sake of processing speed if nothing else! 🙂
I have TONS of tabs open all the time too. My coworkers make fun of me 🙂