Be it at the railway reservation or airport check in counter, like most people you don’t generally stand in just any queue.
Your mind subconsciously assesses the number of persons in each queue together with the pace with which these are moving, and quickly figures out the queue where you don’t have to wait for long.
Despite this you often experience that the lines on both your sides move faster.
What exactly goes on while you wait in a queue?
Do other lines really move faster?
Or, is there something going in your brain?
हमारी समय की अवधारणा परिस्थितियों के साथ बदलती रहती हैं – कभी समय को पंख लग जाते हैं तो कभी यह काटे नहीं कटता।
जब आपका ध्यान बीत रहे समय पर केन्द्रित होता हैं तब समय बीतने की रफ़्तार कम हो जाती हैं और ऐसा इंतजार करते समय प्रायः होता हैं। ऐसा आपने लाइन में खड़े अपनी बारी आने का इंतजार करते समय शायद महसूस भी किया हो।
फिर ज्यादातर अवसरों पर काफी सोच-विचार के बाद एक लाइन में खड़े होने के बाद भी हम प्रायः सबसे तेज लाइन का हिस्सा नहीं बन पाते हैं। सच मानिये, बार-बार धीमी लाइन में खड़े होना कोई संयोग नहीं है।
प्रायिकता के सिद्धान्त के द्वारा प्रायः होने वाले इस संयोग को सहज ही समझा जा सकता है।
04 लाइन होने पर आपकी सबसे तेज लाइन का हिस्सा होने की प्रायिकता मात्र 25 प्रतिशत होती है। जिसका तात्पर्य हैं कि 04 लाइन होने पर आपकी धीमी लाइन का हिस्सा होने की सम्भावना 75 प्रतिशत होती है। ऐसे में जितनी ज्यादा लाइन होंगी आपकी सबसे तेज लाइन का हिस्सा होने की प्रायिकता भी उतनी ही कम होती चली जायेंगी।
वैसे ज्यादातर लोग दाहिनी लाइन में खड़े होना पसंद करते है और पुरुषो में ज्यादा देर तक लाइन में खड़े रहने का सब्र भी कम ही होता है।
ऐसे में बायीं तरफ की वह लाइन खोजिये जिसमे ज्यादा पुरुष हो।
Perception of time
Time really flies when you are having fun. So unlike a clock, personal sense of time is highly subjective and changes based on your feelings. When you are enraptured by the moment, time really does speed up – at least subjectively; and the opposite is also true.
Researchers have conclusively demonstrated that our attention to the passage of time itself slows it down.
Time does slow down when you are bored or paying attention to time itself. And while standing in a queue you pay more attention to the passage of time which becomes clear from what you generally think while waiting in the line.
“When am I getting out of here?”
“Did that person in the other line come before me?”
That is why waiting in line makes time feel slower.
Does it have something to do with other line moving faster?
Psychology behind the wait
There exists a common phenomenon called illusory correlation which is an illusion. This happens when your brain perceives a relationship between things — people, behaviours, events, and others — but the relationship does not really exist.
Here is an illustrative example.
Superstition holds that the broken mirror brings bad luck, and horseshoe brings good luck. However, there exists no evidence supporting these. Despite this parents do advise their children to discard broken mirror and display horseshoe.
The association between broken mirror and bad luck or horseshoe and good luck is an illusory correlation. It is in fact a cognitive bias that your brain cannot refrain from making. No matter who you are, you fall prey to it.
But then, why do you at all make illusory correlation?
It is in fact due to what is called salience.
Some events, people, or things are more salient than others and that just means that these stand out in your mind. In other words, salience is just those bits of information in your brain that stand out to you, and that you consider important.
Take a second and ask yourself – what is the most salient thing in the world to you?
Well, it is more obvious than you might think.
It is you, yourself, isn’t it?
Mind game
When your queue moves along you focus on where you are going, ignoring the people you overtake.
When your queue is stuck, looking at the other lane you think about yourself, and your hard luck.
It is therefore no wonder that the association between you and being overtaken sticks in your memory more than anything else.
You are the most salient thing while waiting in the queue – after all, you are the center of your own universe. So you orient every other event in your immediate environment in line around you and feel like a victim of injustice as other people check out before you.
This is why the other line always moves faster.
The mind can’t help associating others checking out and your personal place in line, making it seem that the other lines are moving faster than the one you have chosen. And this can lead to all sorts of issues.
But then, it is also true that sometimes other lines really do move faster.
Calculating the probability
Imagine there are four queues to choose from. You decide to pick one queue, thinking it to be the fastest. You however realise soon that the another queue is faster.
Statistically speaking, the other queue always moves faster means that the odds are against you.
With four queues, there is a 75 percent chance that one of the other three queues will be faster than the one you have chosen. In effect, you are gambling to checkout faster.
There is only a 25 percent chance that you choose wisely.
You can’t really beat the statistics.
Sometimes, other lines really are faster, and your brain is not fooling you. Though it can be hard to differentiate when you are the victim of the illusory correlation and when your gut-feeling is on point.
Smart choice
There are however a few tips to help you checkout faster.
- Choose lines that are on the left side as most people are right-handed, and they tend to queue in lines leaning to the right.
- Check out with cash; it is typically faster than swiping with a credit card.
- Perhaps not intuitively, it is the number of people in front of you that matters, not how much they are buying.
- Men are more impatient than women and are more likely to leave the queue than stick around. So line up behind men.
Even if you abide by each of the above you might not find yourself with a receipt in your hand in as timely a manner as you like.
The other lines always move faster not just because of psychology but because of some simple statistics. Of course, when you are physically waiting in line those explanations don’t matter much.
All that matters is that the other line always moves faster.
Businesses are presently taking many steps to reduce customer frustration and adopting a queue management system like Qminder is a part of this. Qminder helps businesses organize their queues in an efficient and stress-free manner so that no one spends their waiting thinking that the other lane is always faster.
A little progress each day adds up to big results.
You are absolutely correct.