Please help with a weird feature (for me) in macOS Sonoma. As I am not a power user, I don't know what feature it is associated with or how it is helpful. I would like to either turn it off or learn what it is and if it could be helpful to me.
My Practice: Sometimes when working in an application, I click off of the application to change to finder or some other application. In the past, this just worked (probably why I formed this particular habit). In Sonoma, something new is happening.
Behavior in macOS Sonoma: When I click off the app, all windows leave the screen and now the whole desktop has a shaded box around its now empty workspace. See attached photos. Note: Whenever this happens, I feel like I have done something wrong or made a mistake. I quickly recover, but it is annoying to me at this point.
Question to my macrumor support group: What is going on? Is it part of something useful? Can I turn it off? Do you suggest adopting whatever this feature is and retraining myself to be a more functional part of the macOS community?