If anything we're conditioned by millions of years of evolution to expect things to take time. Things happening instantly in a digital void is relatively new.
The majority of users seem to prefer slow animations for anything that changes, and flight/hotel search pages have used artificial delays for decades.
Users might prefer slow animations, but they absolutely loathe low responsiveness. We have been conditioned by nature to expect immediate feedback from our actions in the physical world. Sure, turning a page might be quite slow, but the moment you hold the paper between your fingers it immediately moves and you get that feeling of control over the object.
> The majority of users seem to prefer slow animations for anything that changes
Tech conditioned people to this expectation. Tech could have also gone and say "no, screw you, we will not introduce artificial slowness Just Because" and in 5-10 years people would have adapted. Swim or die.
It's just the same with IT in general. In the Nordic and Baltic countries, even beggars have credit-card terminals because no one carries cash any more. Most if not all public service is done exclusively online - and yet we do not hear the horror stories of elderly people dying because they can't apply for social security that people are drawing up here in Germany.
People have the capacity to change and adapt, and one does not have to coddle adults.
> Most if not all public service is done exclusively online
I'm from Poland (so close) and I find this true here too, but in 99% of the cases there is a human fallback. You can file your tax return online, but nothing stops you from driving to tax office and filing a paper form there, with a pen.
> yet we do not hear the horror stories of elderly people dying
Well, that's because 100% of the time, elderly people will use public and private healthcare by a phone call with a human. Even if apps and such are available.
I would say it's neither... it's not preference, but also not really conditioning...
The point of those fake animations or fake spinners is showing that "it worked" in the absence of "success" feedback.
I work with offline-first apps and we did some user testing. We have to be careful about things like navigating between pages, because if it's too fast the user will not register the change, and will assume it was an error.
Now THIS is the fault of tech industry, and where I agree that it's conditioning: a lot of tech products simply fail silently, or have very long timeouts, so users are conditioned to translate "lack of response" with "failure".
There are alternatives to animations, however: different designs between pages, changes close to the mouse pointer, or in the case of list refresh showing the "last refreshed 1 second ago"... or even showing a popup with "Successfully loaded". Often this is hated by designers (although the "success popup" is also hated by users), which is why people look for alternatives.
> Nordic and Baltic countries, even beggars have credit-card terminals
Oh, haven't seen that here (Riga). Actually I was out in the capital few days ago and people play music on streets... I can't tip them because I have no coins and they have no terminal or QR code that would lead to a page that enables tipping.
Most places have cc terminals and buying stuff from hands also support sending money to bank account instantly using only sellers phone number, but some parts are still coins only. My wallet doesn't support coins unfortunately.
The majority of users seem to prefer slow animations for anything that changes, and flight/hotel search pages have used artificial delays for decades.