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Digital Superstitions: Why We Still Double Click
Most of barely realise we hang on to superstitions around the technologies we use. This has an impact.
Still hit those Ctrl+S keys when you’re madly typing away on an important document? Even when you know its auto-saving? Maybe you still double-click a link, even with a finger on a mobile device? These aren’t really habits, they’re digital superstitions that have outlived their technical necessity.
Like ancient villagers who avoid that spot on the path where lightening once struck many years past. We all carry these superstitions today in various ways. It is a human quirk, kinda funny at times. But it can also cost businesses in productivity and reveals a gap in how fast technologies can develop, yet we’re so slow.
These digital superstitions weave together a fascinating story around human psychology, cultural transmission and the unexpected emotional relationship we have with digital machines. There’s that damned lizard brain again!
Most often, these rituals are formed based on our earlier emotional experiences with a given technology. In the days of saving everything to a disc, constantly, crashes and lost work were inevitable. That was painful. This created an emotional memory one where people will still hit the…
