Dunno what made me think of this just now. When I worked for IT in a school district way back in the 90s, a librarian told me she kept a supply of mouse balls in her desk because kids would steal them out of the school computers. What I remember about those balls was they picked up dust and crud off surfaces. Pretty soon optical mice came along and they were history.
I was working with some younger people a few years back and one of them noticed that all of us from of a certain generation always slam the mouse down whenever we first use it. I explained it’s a reflex from when the wheels inside the mouse would get stuck with gunk and we would instinctively slam the mouse to get them free.
Wow
I haven’t used a mouseball mouse since i was a kid but your description brought back a visceral memory of doing exactly exactly that.
Haha holy shit, this made me realize I do that all day everyday. It really is a reflex from the 90s and serves zero purpose.
Ouch felt that in my old bones.
Another habit I noticed was lifting the mouse so the cursor stayed still on screen, and putting the mouse down on the edge of the mouse pad, so I could move the cursor further on the screen without going past the mouse pad.
A quirk that’s eliminated nowadays thanks to mice that can adjust dpi on the fly, but I still catch myself doing this paintbrush like motion once in awhile.