Well, to put it in perspective, consider these three words:
Menu Settings Notepad
If these are actionable buttons, the message is encoded and decoded by viewers.
Three bars means what, exactly? There’s the cognitive load.
Menu Settings Notepad
If these are actionable buttons, the message is encoded and decoded by viewers.
Three bars means what, exactly? There’s the cognitive load.
People have no inate understanding of 'menu'. We don't even read short words like that letter by letter, it's read as a block and is far more complex than three bars.
And if we want to focus on just three bars let's not leave out the skeuomorphism trend where three bars meant the "grip" area, something to use to rearrange items or windows.
This is true. It means "exactly the same" where it was used millions of times before it landed on a computer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_bar
"Menu" has a consistent meaning (a list of items to choose from) which most people can be assumed to know. Icons aren't as easily parsed and take more of a mental load to reason about them. Or just trial and error to figure them out.
This was true early on when it was not a common convention, or only used in mobile apps. Now, it is nearly universal, though still not nearly standard enough in placement or presentation.
If we were to redo history, it would've been great to see an expanding menu closely positioned by a top-left logo. Sort of like a Windows Start Menu for each website.
However, it stands that language is more specific and unambiguous—thus better suited to communicate an action.
There’s also the problem of the plethora of OTHER icons which use horizontal bars to cause even more cognitive load.
And then, there are many people who have not learned hamburger menu since childhood, and thus the burden is even greater!