Law #15 - Quality of Life, or an ode to the brain
"The human brain, then, is the most complicated organization of matter that we know."
Disclaimer: I have not smoked anything before writing this, it’s just how my brain functions.
How many times did you find yourself annoyed by something that someone else had no issues with?
I am not talking about politics or major issues that people usually get into conflict for, I am thinking more about things that would seem irrelevant or insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but it’s just something about them that ends up bugging your brain, so you have to deal with it one way or another.
Case in point, I have this streaming app. I won’t name names, it’s pointless.
The streaming app has a functionality that adds a tick to the TV shows that are entirely watched, so you distinguish them from the rest. It also specifies the count, e.g. if a show has 10 episodes it will show 10/10 next to the tick if it is complete, or simply n/10 and no tick if the show is incomplete (where n is the number of episodes you have watched).
Now, for ongoing TV Shows, which have new episodes every week, this tick appears once you have watched the latest episode, and naturally disappears when a new episode is released.
The problem is that the app recently had an upgrade, let’s say from version 1.0 to version 2.0. Version 2.0 completely removed the tick and only left the 10/10 count on the finished TV Shows.
That led to confusion for more reasons than one.
Reason #1: Your brain sees the tick and instantly understands that the show is complete. Therefore, when your brain doesn’t see the tick, it instantly thinks the show is incomplete and makes you go inside that show to check for new episodes. This makes you lose some time.
Reason #2: Your brain sees the tick and instantly understands that the show is complete. Without the tick, when your brain finally understands it has to check the counts, there are multiple cognitive processes involved:
Your brain has to learn to look on the right side for the counts instead of the left for the tick. This is a prerequisite to the cognitive process of identifying if the show is complete.
Your brain has to read the first part of the 10/10 count.
Your brain has to read the second part of the 10/10 count.
Your brain has to evaluate if 10 = 10.
Your brain concludes that the show is complete based on the previous evaluation.
So as you see, extra cognitive processes are involved in this action when you don’t have the tick.
The tick, insignificant as it might seem, helps your brain process that information faster, therefore it takes less of a toll on you in the long term than repeatedly checking counts on every ongoing TV show you watch.
It works on the same logic that follows writing itself. If you ever dabbled in writing, or if you have ever read academic works or books about the writing process, you surely have encountered the following advice: “Avoid Abbreviation.”
The explanation here is that when we abbreviate words in writing, the reader has to process the abbreviation in their brain to find the actual word in its unabbreviated form, exactly how the brain has to process the 10/10 counter on the streaming app to conclude that the TV Show is complete.
Therefore, writing abbreviations leads to getting your readers tired much faster, which leads to their attention being diminished.
Writing complete words, on the other hand, gets your readers the information they need without any extra cognitive processes, which leads to more energic readers and, in turn, makes them feel better and, therefore more likely to read more of what you write.
Keep this in mind: In the two compared examples, it’s always the scenario that involves less effort for the brain that is the beneficial one.
Less effort on the brain doesn’t mean it’s a less intellectual activity. It just means your brain will process more in a given period than in a scenario with more effort.
“The human brain, then, is the most complicated organization of matter that we know.” - Isaac Asimov