An Observation: The Paths We Choose
A diagram of two different paths people often take when walking to and from a destination
An Observation: The Paths We Choose … Sounds deep doesn’t it? I’m not a very deep person, not unless I’m in the ocean and my buoyancy chose to stay on land. In fact, what I mean by The Paths We Choose is, quite literally, the paths we often choose when walking to and from a destination.
This rather pathetic diagram attempts to better describe what I mean: immediately after parking your car you set off on a particular path towards your destination, yet, on the way back to your car, you rarely follow the same path; in fact, you barely come close to it.
Granted, this is only the case when a straight line between the two points isn’t possible.
After taking note of this pattern in my own daily routines, I realized that this was something I do all of the time so I figured it was probably a common, yet unconscious, choice that many people made.
Maybe I should just stick to thinking and writing about HTML mark-up and CSS.
It is odd that you mention this as I was very recently thinking on the same subject. In my case, your arrows are reversed. I tend to begin my travel, walking or driving, going straight and unobstructed for as great a distance as possible before diving into the curvy or more obstructed path. I have noted that others choose the exact opposite strategy - get the difficult part over with first, then smooth sailing.
But is is probably just random.
Jim Kelly
11 Sep 08 at 4:43 pm
That’s interesting. I was actually thinking about this recently too. When Meagan and I walk home from coffee shops, ones that aren’t a straight shot to or from our house, we rarely take the same path in both directions.
I’m sure there’s some psychological reason for this. And I guess I can only hope that one day Radio Lab will cover it. And they will make it sound awesome.
Jason Hawkins
11 Sep 08 at 6:59 pm
Jim, I think you hit the nail on the head, except, as you mentioned, in the opposite behavior as what I often experience: When I walk out a door, the lazy part of me just goes straight forward as much as possible before *needing* to turn left or right in order to avoid back-tracking to my destination.
Marc Amos
12 Sep 08 at 6:14 am
It’s exactly the same with me - I think people tend to walk straight first, and then across. In the case of walking away from your car, you can head straight to wall - a tangible place to turn because you now know you’re in line with the exit. If you turned and walked along the cars first, you’d have to constantly check where the exit is and whether you’d reached it before turning to head towards it.
On the way back, I think it just makes more sense to head to the row the car is in, before trying to find which particular space…
Ben
16 Sep 08 at 6:52 am