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I don't mean to sound like I have some unhealthy obsession with elevators, but perhaps I do.
I see them as living proof that a lot of people have an inherent distrust of technology. I'm talking, of course, about the fact that many times when a person gets on an elevator that's already heading to the floor they need (usually down to the bottom), they feel the need to repress the button. It's as if they're trying to reaffirm the elevator's intentions of going to said floor. Or maybe they think that if they press the button again it will let the elevator know that now an extra person wants to go to the floor, so it'll go extra fast. Perhaps they don't trust some other person's ability to press the button, and although it's lit up in indication that it's pressed, they'd better just make sure.
None of those excuses seem to cover it as well as the simple fact that even though the button is clearly lit, indicating the elevator's instruction to stop on a particular floor, people don't trust that light. They feel better and more confident that the elevator will actually stop when they've pressed it themselves.
Needless to say, I don't partake in such an activity. I know that I can trust the elevator (unless, of course, it's a Bagby elevator [see below]).
Another related item of note was especially evident in my stay at Rose Towers. Even though the "down" button that you pressed earlier becomes unlit and the little arrow by the elevator door points down when the elevator stops on the floor, many people still feel the need to ask the person in the elevator if they're going down. They trust the person in the elevator, who probably doesn't even speak English, more than they trust the computer that runs the elevator system.
Once again, I can't complain about that too much, since said elevators are Bagby's.