Are you stressed out? Maybe you have too many browser tabs open

pcgamer.com:

Are you feeling anxious? Demotivated? Discombobulated, even? If the answer is yes, you may want to ask yourself one thing: How many browser tabs do you open right now?

Students at Aalto University in Finland recently studied the cause and effect of what they call 'browsing clutter'(opens in new tab) on people, and the different ways they have of dealing with it. They surveyed 400 participants and interviewed over a dozen people who spent more than 10 hours a week online about their browsing habits and feelings once the tabs started piling up.  

So what counts as clutter? Most of the participants commonly have 1-3 windows open with around 5-10 tabs open in each window, so you're talking about more than a dozen tabs open at once on average. Over half of the people who participated in the study consider browser clutter «a serious problem.»

Those who consider their excess tab usage a problem said it made them feel overwhelmed, anxious, frustrated, and demotivated. And if that wasn't enough, some said the visual overload resulted in decreased work efficiency, increased levels of distraction, and difficulty sorting through information.

Just think about when you're shopping for something online, like, let's say, the best gaming PC(opens in new tab): You'd probably open a search engine, type in 'best gaming PC,' and then open tabs for a bunch of PC hardware sites. You might also want to check out some reviews for those sweet gaming rigs, leading to even more open tabs. Once you're done with that, you'll go look for the best price on whatever desktop you've chosen on various retail sites. And if you're doing this during work hours, you probably have a bunch of other-work related tabs open like email, spreadsheet, and other docs