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One part Tetris effect, one part Klüver form constants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_constant

Thanks for sharing that Klüver form constant, did not know about that term. The Tetris Effect I had heard about.

The ability of our minds and brains to create these forms by themselves and also there being a logical, game like mechanic when you use our software might explain parts of why it feels so good to continue doing, and why these acts permeate into the mind even not when doing it.

Also the fact that you can easily spend hours working on these patterns, when you have a tool that enables that easily enough, it supports the thinking that our minds start to replicate and predict these patterns, as mentioned by one poster above this.

I've experienced with this with racquetball strangely enough, and my brother tells me that he regularly experiences this with playing the piano.

(This makes me terrified of the degree to which programming has affected my way of thinking, considering I've spent 100x as much time doing that as playing racquetball.)

I experienced this with chess, to the point where it affected my sleep and I had to stop. I'm a remarkably bad chess player too.