5 buttons you press every day that secretly do nothing

June 25, 2026

By Kim Komando

You mash the close-door button in the elevator. The doors close. Victory. Except they were closing anyway. 

Thank the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, which says doors stay open a few seconds so everyone gets on safely. Most close-door buttons do nothing for you. Firefighters get one that works, with a key. 

Welcome to the world of placebo buttons. They’re everywhere, built to make you feel in control when you have none.

🚦 The crosswalk button

That button you jab while waiting to cross? Mostly theater. 

New York installed thousands in the 1970s, before computers ran the lights. By 2016, only about 120 of the city’s 3,250 still triggered the walk signal. Dallas turned off every downtown button. Boston, too. 

Why leave the dead ones up? Money. Ripping them out would cost over $1 million.

🌡️ The thermostat my brother-in-law faked

My brother-in-law worked as a contractor in an office building. When workers complained the temperature was off, he installed a placebo thermostat. Looked real. Wired to nothing. They could set it to whatever they wanted. And every time he checked in, they thanked him for finally fixing the problem, even offering a donut. Nothing had changed. 

He’s not the only one. A Wall Street Journal story confirmed fake office thermostats are real, installed to make complaints disappear.

💻 The ‘Searching…’ bar

Ever book a flight and watch “Searching 200 sites… Checking United…”? Often theater. 

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Harvard researchers built two identical travel sites. One was instant. The other made you wait while it “searched.” People trusted the slow one more and rated it higher. 

So sites like Kayak still run that animation even when results loaded a second ago. The wait isn’t for the computer. It’s for you.

🕵️ The ‘Do Not Track’ heartbreaker

This one costs you. Your browser has a “Do Not Track” setting. About 75 million Americans flipped it on. The catch? It was a polite request, not a rule, and Google and Facebook ignored it. Apple and Firefox have since removed it entirely. 

The real fix: Turn on Global Privacy Control instead. It has legal teeth. California fined Sephora $1.2 million for ignoring it. Find it in Firefox, Brave or DuckDuckGo. Lock it down.

🤦‍♀️ Why do these fakes work? 

Psychologists call it the illusion of control. Pressing a button, even a dead one, makes us feel like we have a say. Studies even show people wait more patiently when they think they pushed something. So next time you jab one, know. The button’s pressing you.

I don’t trust elevators, by the way. They’re always up to something. And they always let me down.

📩 Send this to someone who furiously mashes the close-door button every single time they step into an elevator. You know exactly who.