As the poet Shawn Carter said, "I got no patience, and I hate waitin.."
You aren't alone Jay, luckily, science has the answer.
The holidays are upon us, which means waiting.
Lots of waiting.
Waiting in lines is agonizing.
You get in line, and then the other one moves faster and you switch…
Then after like 2 minutes you're freaking out and the first line is…
GAAHHH
Waiting in line is the worst.
Humans HATE waiting in line.
Surveys done consistently find that humans will estimate they waited 36-percent longer
than they really did.
Why?
Humans are self-obsessed, // and why SHOULDN'T I BE?
I'm awesome.
// But of course, all this self-obsession doesn't translate well to efficiency at the
cash register.
A paper called "The Psychology of Waiting [in] Lines" says we hate standing in queues
because we see it as time wasted which could otherwise be productive.
To solve this, businesses toss psychological tricks into the queuing area -- think mirrors
by elevators, long walks from arrival gates to baggage claims, televisions at theme parks,
candy, gum, magazines, or batteries at grocery stores...
These things make you FEEL like the time waiting on line is being used; and you no longer overestimate
the wait!
The science behind all this, is a relationship between "queuing theory," "illusory correlation,"
and the "just world fallacy."
The "just world fallacy" says, psychologically, humans tend to believe the world is a fair,
orderly, predictable place where people get what they deserve.
So when you jump in a line and the one NEXT to you starts moving faster, you freak, because
we don't want to believe we deserve this!
// WHY ME, GOD!!
WHY!?!
// So, because of the illusory correlation, we act without thinking and switch lines.
This second theory is where humans create a correlation in their minds when it doesn't
exist -- think stereotypes, or patterns which we BELIEVE exist, but they don't.
Why does the first line instantly seem to speed up now?
// STUPID!
WHY DID I LEAVE THAT ONE?!
// It doesn't ACTUALLY speed up, it just looks like it does.
We don't want to do the mental math concerning the number of parcels, payment methods, cashier
speeds, price tag placement and so on.
Instead, we just assume because it's moving faster at THIS MOMENT, it's going to keep
doing so -- aaaaand WE SWITCH BACK TO THE FIRST LINE AWW CRAP SO STUPID.
Of course, there ARE times when one line is moving faster, but the chances of you doing
all the math to catch on are slim, because it's so much easier to assume!
What if I told you an engineer from early-20th century Denmark solved these line-waiting
woes… but we humans are so dumb about lines, we almost NEVER use the SIMPLE solution.
Yeah.
Which is better, a line for every cashier, or one long line that feeds ALL the cashiers?
If you said the long line, you're right.
Some of you are probably having anxiety just THINKING about the one long line snaking back
and forth… but that's more efficient!
In the early 1900s, the Copenhagen telephone exchange wanted to use the fewest number of
lines to route in and out of the community.
One long distance line for the town wasn't enough, but a line for every house would be
wasteful.
To solve the problem, an engineer created an algorithm to figure with the average time
per call, and average number of calls per hour the minimum number of lines needed to
connect 99-percent of calls right away.
It was seven lines for the whole town, by the way.
Not too many!
This is EXACTLY the same as waiting in line at the cash-register.
It's BETTER!
MAKE A SINGLE LINE PEOPLE.
Where's the worst/best line ever?
How do you feel about the single line?!
Happy Holidays everyone!
While you're in line, tweet at us, watch DNews, or tell the other people how they're too self-obsessed
to do line-math properly.
That should entertain you enough during your wait…