KeeptabWhy we keep too many tabs open: what Carnegie Mellon research found
Published · Keeptab
In short: A 2021 Carnegie Mellon study found that tabs stay open because they do real jobs: reminders, references and a kind of external memory. In its preliminary survey of 64 people, 55% said they can't let go of their tabs, 30% said they have a "tab hoarding problem" and 25% had seen their browser or computer crash from too many tabs.[1]
The study
In 2021, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University published “When the Tab Comes Due: Challenges in the Cost Structure of Browser Tab Usage” at CHI 2021, the ACM conference on human factors in computing systems.[1][2]
The work has three parts:[1]
- Interviews: 10 information workers. The researchers went through every open tab on their work computers, 4 times over 2 weeks.
- Main survey: 103 people, recruited online, to measure how common each problem is.
- Preliminary survey: 64 people. Most of the headline percentages below come from this one.
The key numbers
| Finding | Figure | Who was asked |
|---|---|---|
| Feel they can't let go of their tabs | 55% | 64 people |
| Would find tabs to close if they looked right now | 59% | 64 people |
| Agree they “have a tab hoarding problem” | 30% | 64 people |
| Often struggle to find the tab they need | 28% | 64 people |
| Had their browser or computer crash from too many tabs | 25% | 64 people |
| Say laziness is why they don't close tabs | 19% | 64 people |
| Have trouble managing tabs at least once a week | 67% (17% daily) | 103 people |
| Number of open tabs where problems start (median) | 8 tabs (half said 5 to 12) | 103 people |
All figures: Chang et al., CHI 2021.[1] The numbers are self-reported.
Six reasons tabs stay open
People in the main survey labeled 633 of their open tabs with the reason they kept them. One tab could have several reasons, so the total is above 100%.[1]
- A page you come back to often (a reference): 41.7% of tabs.
- A reminder of something unfinished: 37.3%.
- Part of your “external memory” for a project: 20.1%.
- Fear of not finding the page again after closing it: 17.7%.
- Reading you may never get to (kept out of sunk cost or good intentions): 16.6%.
- Relevance unclear or changed: 5.7%.
So an open tab is rarely clutter by accident. It is a reminder, a bookmark and a memory at once. The authors note that saving a tab as a bookmark and closing it removes the tab's ability to “nag” you.[1]
“People feared that as soon as something went out of sight, it was gone.” — Aniket Kittur, Carnegie Mellon University[2]
Not a new problem
The paper cites a 2010 study (Huang and White) that found that at least 60% of tabs were related to other tabs of the same task.[1] Tabs often come in groups, one group per task.
After the study, the CMU team built Skeema, a Chrome extension that “reimagines tabs as tasks”: it helps users group tabs into tasks, then organize, prioritize and switch between them.[2]
What this means in practice
This part is our opinion, as makers of Keeptab, a tab manager.
If the main reason people keep tabs open is the fear of losing them, then “just close your tabs” is not useful advice. What helps is a way to close tabs and keep a safe copy you trust:
- Save tabs by task, so a group of tabs becomes one list you can reopen in one click.
- Keep automatic backups, so a closed list is never truly gone. Keeptab backs your lists up every hour and keeps deleted lists in a trash for 30 days.
- Protect against crashes, since 25% of people in the survey had one. Keeptab notes your open tabs every 5 minutes.
FAQ
How many tabs is too many?
In the Carnegie Mellon survey of 103 people, the median person said problems start at 8 open tabs. Half answered between 5 and 12 tabs (Chang et al., CHI 2021).
Why can't I close my tabs?
According to Chang et al. (CHI 2021), tabs act as reminders, references and external memory, and people fear they won't find a page again. In a survey of 64 people, 55% said they can't let go of their tabs; only 19% blamed laziness.
Can too many tabs crash my browser?
In the Carnegie Mellon preliminary survey of 64 people, 25% said their browser or computer had crashed from having too many tabs open (Chang et al., CHI 2021).
Sources
- Chang, J. C., Hahn, N., Kim, Y., Coupland, J., Breneisen, B., Kim, H. S., Hwong, J., Kittur, A. (2021). When the Tab Comes Due: Challenges in the Cost Structure of Browser Tab Usage. CHI 2021, ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445585
- Carnegie Mellon University News (May 10, 2021). Overcoming Tab Overload. https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2021/may/overcoming-tab-overload.html
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