Why do mouse cursors never align with actors' hand movements (or always move perfectly straight)?

Question

Most of the time when you see a computer screen in a film the cursor always moves in a perfectly straight line.Sometimes you can even see actors moving the mouse, but it would in no way align with what's happening on the screen, a cursor moving straight from point A to B.It is quite obvious that the actors movement and cursor movement aren't the same. Natural mouse movements just aren't that straight. So, why do they do that?Is it an editing thing, where they will just edit the scene (emphasis with what would be on the computer's screen) later and have the actor make general mouse movements upfront? As to save time perhaps?Most of the time the goal of a movie is to draw you in to its story. But for me every time I see a cursor go perfectly straight I can't help but think "oh heh, there's that typical unnatural cursor again". That can't be a desired effect, and must've been thought about during production, right? So is this just being overlooked for the sake of simplicity and / or money?For some weird reason I'd really like an answer to this minute problem.

Answer 1

Often times most TVs and PC monitors you see in videos are done in post-production. The refresh rates of the screens are different from the cameras so it will cause a flickering effect. The workaround for this is to record the screen independently usually using capture software and then apply it to the scene in question. So to answer your question, it is because what you are seeing is prerecorded! The actors will try to mimic the mouse movement the best they can, but as you have clearly noticed this doesn't always work out.