What the Open Tabs on Your Computer Say About You

Chaotic. Evil. By Lydia L. Cawley

We’ve all been there: a gnarly surf of the Web ends in crashing waves, and a crashing browser. We open link after link in a new tab until the tabs are so tiny we have to squint to distinguish our Google Calendar from our Google Drive. We know that keeping so many tabs open inevitably overwhelms our senses and computers, but we can’t bring ourselves to quit. The question is, what do the open tabs on our computers say about us?

Confessions of an online shopaholic

10 tabs, 50 tabs, 100 tabs, let’s just not even discuss it. Clearly we have a problem with online splurging on clothes, shoes, dorm decorations, and ridiculous things like overpriced Muji pencils. Did you know you can order Crabby Patty Gummies on Amazon?

Facebook memes

Tagging all shameless procrastinators. Either we’re trying to get through an atrociously boring lecture, or to maintain friendships via daily meme tags—the tabs say it all.

Summer internships and programs

These tabs reek of desperation. The last-minute scramble to make summer arrangements is evidenced by tabs from program sites, email correspondences, the OCS website, and the dreaded “CARAT.”

Daily Mail articles

We’re just trying to take our education into our own hands...about pop culture, that is. Every now and then we go a bit overboard, and while the Daily Mail is mostly garbage, we simply can’t tear our eyes away from that day's new Kardashian-Jenner pap shots.

WebMD

For the self-proclaimed doctors among us. Whether we’re researching the symptoms of mono, herpes, or the measles (whichever hot new disease is infecting Harvard that week), the abundance of open WebMD tabs only add to our anxiety about dying from the common flu.

Buzzfeed quizzes

And down the rabbit hole we go! What will it be today? Are These Oreo Flavors Real or Made Up? What Steve Harvey Suit Are We? Or maybe, What Disney Love Song Should We Play at Our Wedding?

Speaking of, thanks for taking “What the Open Tabs on Your Computer Say About You.”

Your result: you’re neurotic, scatterbrained, and easily-distractible, just like the rest of us.