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Comment by tomerbd | Hacker News Reader

so this explains why 20 seconds, if anyone would explain that at the first place and not just say out of the air wash for 20 seconds I would remember the motivation and understand and do that otherwise I forget what I do not understand. So typical of the shallow news not to explain.

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Some people, like you and I, do better with the explanation. Some people, like my grandma, get bored about a syllable and a half into the explanation and just want to hear the rule. I agree that both should be accommodated, but I suspect that the large majority case is people who are okay with the high-level presentation.

Some people simply want to be told "what" to do. They don't care about "why".

Others wish to understand "why" they are being told to do "that". These folks are typically on the science/engineering side of the spectrum.

Unfortunately, the "tell me what" population group size seems to widely outnumber the "tell me why" population group size, so most "reports/directives" from authority accommodate only the "tell me what" group, leaving those of us in the "why" category wondering "ok.... and just 'why' do you want me to do that?"

That is same with anything else you suppose to do but not explained why.

The moment I know good reason for why I should be doing something, my resistance to doing so drops to near zero.

But most people/authorities only parrot the thing we should be doing, mostly because they don't really understand why.

> so this explains why 20 seconds

Where? I've read the thread three times now and I still have missed the part about 20 seconds. Why not 10 or 30?

It's a complex balance between the effectiveness of the behaviour and the willingness of people to perform it. That's the usual reason, anyway.

So long as you're not stripping away layers of skin, I don't see why 30 seconds wouldn't be better.

Sure, but grandparent spoke about an explicit explanation.

Correct... the article does not explicitly mention the 20-second recommendation, which was presumably arrived at by experimentation. But it does explain why such a time-based recommendation might work:

> The skin is quite rough and wrinkly which is why you do need a fair amount of rubbing and soaking to ensure the soap reaches very crook and nanny on the skin surface that could be hiding active viruses.

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