It keeps your Slack/Teams/etc. status as online. These apps will display your status as away if they detect that the computer appears idle (i.e. no mouse/keyboard inputs).

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cebert 4 days ago | parent [-]

Are there really managers to constantly look at their report’s online presence indicator to determine if they’re being productive or not? What if they’re whiteboard or having an ad-hoc conversation that RTO advocates value so much?

	▲	MontyCarloHall 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It’s less about gaming metrics and more about keeping up appearances. The sort of person who uses a mouse jiggler is constantly absent from their computer to a degree that anyone who interacts with them would implicitly notice “huh, this person is literally never online” versus “this person takes a while to respond to messages, they must be busy.”
	▲	Tostino 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The platforms give reports to managers on idle time. If the manager is lazy and uses just that as an indicator of if someone is working or not then it's an easy metric to game.