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MRIs Show Our Brains Shutting Down When We See Security Prompts
antdude writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRIs) show our brains shutting down when we see security prompts. The MRI images show a "precipitous drop" in visual processing after even one repeated exposure to a standard security warning and a "large overall drop" after 13 of them. Previously, such warning fatigue has been observed only indirectly, such as one study finding that only 14 percent of participants recognized content changes to confirmation dialog boxes or another that recorded users clicking through one-half of all SSL warnings in less than two seconds.
There have been too many times where I have gone to a website I frequent and find their certificate has expired. A couple days later, there may be a sheepish apology from them.
Then there are warnings about reloading pages because whoever designed the website didn't handle the back button correctly.
Then there are the redirection warnings because of yet another shitty web design.
They start to get insensitive about those things. And some of the warnings come in such rapid succession -really? I've had to click away several warnings on top of one another until I just said, "Fuck it! These people are morons. Find someone else."
Oh, and if a web developer is going to use an advertising company that does crazy shit that kicks off warnings (you know who they are), please, please, go to business school and stop developing.
Obviously their brains will shut down since 99% of 'security' prompts are mere nuisances with no value whatsoever. The brain notices patterns like that pretty quick.
Did they test with dumb regular users who don't understand or don't know better, or did they test people who actually know what those security warnings mean and the real consequences of ignoring them?
Hold on, TFA says they note a decrease in visual processing. Perhaps the decrease in visual processing is because the user is using another part of their brain to process the new information, and to appropriately decide what the best response is.
They also note an "overall" decrease after repeated exposures to the same message, but that's what we do; we learn from experience. That's a feature, not a bug.