Why Do Smokers Knock (or Pack) on a New Pack of Cigarettes?

I bet you have seen it so many times and you have no idea why they did it, as a smoker myself I can tell you there is no benefit to knocking unless you are talking about a pack which has been opened for a while, and as you carry on with your daily activities, the tobacco on each stick becomes loose so you need to knock on each individual stick before lighting up to bring the tobacco together, and that's in order to get the best smoking experience. As for new pack, there is no need to knock because the pack itself is airtight and is very compact, even if you move around, it won't become loose, in fact the act of knocking actually causes the tobacco to drop off, if you don't believe, check the inside of your empty pack and you will see plenty of loose tobacco at the bottom, in my pack, there's hardly any loose tobacco because I don't knock, so you see knocking is a waste of tobacco.

So why do they do it anyway? Well, when I started smoking at 13 years old, I knock because I see my peers doing it, if you ask me why I do it I will probably give you a reason such as to compact the tobacco in each stick, but it's bullshit, more like wasting tobacco. So you see, smokers got to learn how to smoke from someone, got to learn to knock the pack from someone, it's more like a virus, spread from one to another and nobody questions why, just do it anyway since everyone is doing it, if you don't do it you become unusual, nobody wants to be the outstanding one, everybody wants to be like everyone, it's herd mentality.