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Why Your Brain Hates Slowpokes

nautil.us

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Re: Why Your Brain Hates Slowpokes

#11

Post by mynegation »

makmanalp wrote: post #2

For me it's a combo between this /and/ just people's attitude - it's fine if you want to be slow, but you have to be considerate of others. I wouldn't be mad if you were walking slowly on the side of the street - probably wouldn't even notice - but I'll be mad if you're walking slowly in the middle. It often costs nothing to be considerate, and it makes life more pleasant for everyone!

I live in Toronto, and there is PATH - 30 km (and growing) network of tunnels and concourses connecting major downtown towers, buildings, subway stations and shopping malls. It is indispensable in winter and hot summer where you can buy goods and services without ever going outside.

The problem with PATH is, ironically, pedestrians. My biggest gripe are people walking slowly, 3 or 4 abreast. The list goes on: stopping and turning 180 suddenly, bumping into each other cutting corners etc.

It bothers me enough that I started to fantasize about adopting road-like rules for walking in busy places: no more than 2 persons side to side, no sudden stops, green and red lights in the row of doors to regulate the direction of the flow, cutting corners is only allowed for right turns...

Re: Why Your Brain Hates Slowpokes

#13

Post by spatten »

Maybe I'm just rationalizing it because I want to think of myself as a calm, non-ragey person, but to me it feels like something else.

I agree with others that it feels rude when someone else takes up the whole sidewalk.

But it's also that I walk a lot, and use it as a form of transportation. I go twice as fast as a lot of people on the sidewalk, and it seems like if people just sped up a bit they'd find walking more useful, which would make them drive less, which is a good thing, and it drives me crazy that this isn't obvious to them.

Like I said, I'm probably just rationalizing :)

Re: Why Your Brain Hates Slowpokes

#14

Post by gone35 »

agumonkey wrote: post #12

Was it true that people were happy waiting 2 seconds for a webpage 10 years ago ? The unrewarding theory is still genius nonetheless. The faster the worse ?

I'm pretty sure her source is this series of Forrester studies commissioned by Akamai in 2006 and 2009 [1,2,3].

Note they focused on online shoppers though. Also, subjectively, if anything it feels to me as if pages load much slower than in the mid-2000s --especially with all this new "Web 3.0" crap. But that's just me...

[1] http://www.akamai.com/html/about/press/releases/2009/press_0...

[2] http://royal.pingdom.com/2009/09/17/internet-users-expect-we...

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/technology/impatient-web-u...

Re: Why Your Brain Hates Slowpokes

#15

Post by bentcorner »

agumonkey wrote: post #12

Was it true that people were happy waiting 2 seconds for a webpage 10 years ago ? The unrewarding theory is still genius nonetheless. The faster the worse ?

I don't mind waiting 2 seconds (or more) for a webpage to load iff:

1.) There is a notion of progress being made earlier than the 2s mark, and

2.) It's "worth it" for however long it has to take. Loading up a comment reply page in HN should be instantaneous, displaying a large PDF can be acceptably longer (as long as #1 holds)

Re: Why Your Brain Hates Slowpokes

#16

Post by agumonkey »

gone35 wrote: post #14
agumonkey wrote: post #12

Was it true that people were happy waiting 2 seconds for a webpage 10 years ago ? The unrewarding theory is still genius nonetheless. The faster the worse ?

I'm pretty sure her source is this series of Forrester studies commissioned by Akamai in 2006 and 2009 [1,2,3]. Note they focused on online shoppers though. Also, subjectively, if anything it feels to me as if pages load much slower than in the mid-2000s --especially with all this new "Web 3.0" crap. But that's just me... [1] http://www.akamai.com/html/about/press/releases/2009/press_0... [2] http://royal.pingdom.com…

The model is finer grained, less predictable and not bringing real value compared to the old single page model. I feel relaxed whenever I run into a vintage website.

Thanks for the links, very interesting to see.

Re: Why Your Brain Hates Slowpokes

#18

Post by vanderZwan »

makmanalp wrote: post #2

For me it's a combo between this /and/ just people's attitude - it's fine if you want to be slow, but you have to be considerate of others. I wouldn't be mad if you were walking slowly on the side of the street - probably wouldn't even notice - but I'll be mad if you're walking slowly in the middle. It often costs nothing to be considerate, and it makes life more pleasant for everyone!

Whenever I read about people considered to be inconsiderate, I wonder: did anyone bother to make this clear to the "inconsiderate" people in question?

Re: Why Your Brain Hates Slowpokes

#19

Post by speakeron »

"I started to fear that we would be so late for our reservation that we would miss it. But when we got to the restaurant, we were no more than a couple minutes behind. My sense of time had warped."

Isn't the solution in this case simply a watch or some other form of portable timepiece?

Re: Why Your Brain Hates Slowpokes

#20

Post by petercooper »

To twist it around, I don't think it's the "slowpokes", I'm annoyed by not being able to do things at my own pace. So if I can go around someone or use a different checkout, great! I suspect it's not a problem with slowpokes, it's more the loss of personal control and autonomy. (I bought a car specifically for its crazy levels of acceleration for this reason :-))
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