[zxexz]

Yes this is very much the reason. It gets dry where I am in the winter, and it never occurred to me to do this. An older gent in a coffee shop once watched me try to turn a page, and enlightened me. I’ve met more than a few people who have a dedicated finger glove for turning pages :)

[buran77]

Wet sponges [0] for people counting money were a very common sight some decades ago before money counting machines and mostly electronic payments. Probably still being used just not so obvious anymore. Regardless of age fingertips will eventually get too dry as the paper absorbs all the moisture and flipping pages or separating banknotes becomes hard.

For touchscreens dry fingers are also called "zombie finger" [1]. The screen registers the too minute change in electrical field as noise and rejects the touch event. Some sweat (but not too much) on the fingers makes all the difference.

[0] https://image.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sponge-finger-wet...

[1] https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2015/06/zombie-fing...

[freedomben]

I'm also in a dry climate, and even as a teenager I often had to lick my fingers in order to get the plastic bags at the grocery store open (I was a bagger so had to do it all day). Eventually we got smart and started putting wet sponges by the bags, which is also an amazing life hack if you have trouble turning pages.

[markman]

This thread is so long. It started with tactile buttons being back yet it's mainly about opening plastic bags. I like that. I think that's funny.

[chgs]

Wet sponges were a common site in offices back before widespread computing and lots of cash.