I share this "pain".

I have the unshakable habit of triple-clicking a paragraph to highlight it to serve as a mark of where I was at when i need to interrupt reading.

I also have the same ehabit. I a glad I am not the only one.

Interesting little curiosity about how triple-click implementation varies in some popular software =)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple-click

Me too, anyone know why this is a thing? Such a common twitch... does it help reading?

I have acquired this habit from the 2 years I've spent playing Starcraft : Brood War and Starcraft 2 semi-competitively.

In the game you have to select units by dragging a box around them, and that habit has carried over to selecting text on the screen in pretty much every computer application.

I know that probably doesn't answer your question, but that would probably require a neuroscientist. It doesn't help me read personally, it just seems to be one of those repetitive tasks that slightly autistic people do.

Some of my coworkers share this habit as well, and they've never played RTS games, so it's acquired in different ways.

I do not have any data on it (1) but I think it's like moving a bookmark across the page as you are reading: it makes it easier to jump from the end of one line to the start of the next one.

(1) not even on the claim that that bookmark has that effect.

It's called meta-guiding

In french I say "astigmate". Either vertical or horizontal lines are blurred. Plus maybe you're tired. Anyway you can follow straight lines and you select something to add a visual clue of your position. "It's all because of" modern designers and their featureless screens.

I too am a highlighter

I too am a highlighter.

I too am a highlighter.

I too am a highlighter. We should form a self-help group.

I'm in.

I only learnt that the other day. I read that double clicking selects words, so I had to take it one step further.

No, clicking four times doesn't select the whole page.

I sometimes select the current line that I am reading. This helps me to quickly figure out the start of the next line when I am finished reading the current one.

So what do you guys think of HN? I get frustrated by how if I drag the selection down on HN comments, the selection will "hop" up at certain points. It's very aesthetically unpleasing, but I just need to click and drag select whatever I'm reading.

fwiw, I believe this is due to HN's archaic table-based html layout, as opposed to some javascript code like on medium and this new ms docs site.

This is it.

It has to do with border-spacing between table cells -- when you select text that runs into the border-spacing, it resets the selection to go from 1) original cell 2) start of the table 3) next cell.

With more sane styling (ie: setting border-spacing to 0), the selection won't jump to the start of the table.

I don't mind HN, you can get all sorts of pleasing patterns of highlight by dragging down nested comment hierarchies. Extra satisfying when you get the darker 'double highlight' and you can make it pop by wiggling your fingers a bit.

This is just heaven here: http://imgur.com/asQy8v3

Look at all those lovely lines and right angles.

Hey, don't sell yourself short. It's akin to using your finger while reading a book. It helps you to keep your place and focus, which the highlighting in browsers works even better for. So I wouldn't necessarily call it a quirk that Microsoft doesn't have to account for. Webdevs should really stop overriding browser defaults in detriment to the user experience. (nothing is more evil than clipboard hijacking)

I wonder what proportion of the web population does this, and if they have a demographic skew. I think I remember starting this back in the late 90's in response to a combination of extremely janky, inconsistent scrolling and tiny monitors which made me easily lose my place while reading a long article. So I'd highlight a section of text before scrolling as a marker, which developed into a compulsion over time. The constant clicking drives my friends and coworkers nuts.

I used to do this. Switching to using a MacBook full-time fixed that habit for me. Even when I connect to a big monitor, I use a trackpad, not a mouse. Harder to compulsively highlight with that thing.

Enable 3-finger drag on the trackpad and relive the old days.

Don't forget the 11-finger tap.

Damn you. :p

Not only Medium, there are lots of websites like this. BTW It seems there's lots of us compulsive clickers here on HN :)

I used to do this and then stopped once I switched to Linux where selecting text put it on a clipboard automatically.

I suspect it's related to some patterns when reading books, like putting a bookmark below your current line and moving it down, or following your current position with your finger.