Mother mallard with chicks (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

12 February 2026

Has there ever been a software update on your computer or cellphone that you really hate?

• Aaarrg! My phone nagged me to reboot after auto-update, and now I hate how it works!
• The update broke my favorite app!!!
• Why did they hide the one feature I use every day? Where did they put it?
• The old app I love doesn’t work anymore after system update. Now what?
• I know I’m supposed to run updates but they always break something.

These reactions are quite normal and they have a name: Baby Duck Syndrome.

In human–computer interaction, baby duck syndrome denotes the tendency for computer users to “imprint” on the first system they learn, then judge other systems by their similarity to that first system. The result is that “users generally prefer systems similar to those they learned on and dislike unfamiliar systems”.^[24] The issue may present itself relatively early in a computer user’s experience, and it has been observed to impede education of students in new software systems or user interfaces.

We often imprint on our first software just like baby ducks imprint on the first moving thing they see. This is probably how we humans are wired for survival. When we learn a tool that works we don’t want to give it up.

Imprinting isn’t dumb and it isn’t dumb to imprint. This video explains why.