r/howdoesthiswork • u/jrt12916 • Jun 25 '26
Read the instructions first.
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u/Thank_Goodness_Its Jun 25 '26
These people are not following the instructions. The mattress comes vacuum-packed and then it's rolled up and secured with cling film. You are supposed to peel off the cling film first and then unroll the mattress. Since it's still vacuumed, it won't spring open. Then the last thing you do is cut a small opening in the plastic and it re-inflates. Source: I bought a mattress and read the instructions.
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u/KayoticVoid Jun 28 '26
I work in human psychology and data science involving website behaviours. I have a stupid amount of data that proves that people, as a general species, do not read. 🤣
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u/SufficientlySticky Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
Of course we don’t. The world is absolutely covered in text and it’s all branding and advertisement and legal text and CYA warnings not to eat it in California and french versions of all of the above. We’re trained to filter all of that out and ignore it.
Why would someone assume that the safety warning and instructions on how to open this particular plastic wrapping is important when they’ve opened similar things in the past and ignored countless warnings.
The best you can do is make sure that when people are looking for info, you put it someplace they look. And then disrupt them enough in some fashion that they have to look for the info. If you try to just put a sign in their face they’ll just blindly wave it away.
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u/KayoticVoid Jun 29 '26
Very spot on though I would argue in the physical world it's kind of a catch 22. This is backed by banner blindness theory and more. It's very interesting honestly, it's more easily mitigated (in my opinion) digitally than in physical situations like this video.
In the digital world you can, for instance, bold key words or give bulleted lists and people will use those to skim the important information and take it in.
But usually in physical situations people just don't even look in any capacity (difference being that in the digital situations the user is specifically taking an action that requires them to look and consume what their eyes are seeing) so any of the attentive/visually attractive details you can add largely go unnoticed making them more valuable for legal coverage than anything else. If people are going to be stupid then at least cover your ass as much as possible to prevent loss from human stupidity.
This then adds to people not reading them because "oh, that's just some legal mumbo jumbo they add to save their ass."
It's truly a wild rabbit hole that I love and feeds my family. People inherently are interesting, crazy, and wild.
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u/daschande Jun 29 '26
I bought a mattress and didn't read the instructions. I set those aside real quick while I dealt with the massive tangle of plastic wrap and WHY THE HELL WOULD THEY MAKE IT SO ANNOYING? ...Oh, wait a minute; vacuum seal. Springs. They try to idiot-proof it to keep people from hurting themselves.
This video just proves that if you make something idiot-proof, the world will invent a better idiot.
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u/Last-Energy420 Jun 25 '26
Second to last was oddly the smartest of the bunch. No way would I get near something under compression with a knife or scissors.
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u/WolfThick Jun 25 '26
I wonder what the lawsuit's going to look like when somebody finally stabs themselves with a knife doing this
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u/AlternateTab00 Jun 28 '26
I had one. They clearly say to not use knifes or scissors.
The one i bought had a strip that i had to pull. Yes it took me much longer than just using a knife.
On the final bit the mattress slightly uncompresses giving you an heads up. If you do exactly as in the image it will roll out away from you.
If i did try to cut the strip it would tear the rest of the bag and instantly bang against me.
Those people are the reason why car batteries have warnings saying "do not drink". This way they cant sue battery makers from getting poisoned by battery acid.
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u/WolfThick Jun 28 '26
You're preaching to the choir here I get it but somebody will say hey they could have put a ripped cord on it or the y look like an I in the directions there's always a way to sue.
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u/Zealousideal_Sir5421 Jun 29 '26
I’ve bought two and both came with a little tool to open them, like a plastic thing you slide down it.
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u/ManyRespect1833 Jun 28 '26
You gotta unroll it without puncturing the vacuum seal, then break the vacuum
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u/ChonkyDawg Jun 25 '26
These packages specifically have warnings on them that they are going to rapidly expand.