What is the purpose of the "box" you can make with your mouse on your desktop?

Question

When you click your mouse button on your desktop, you can make a blank box but once you let go, it goes away. Whats the purpose of it? You cant really do anything with it. Ive always wondered this.

Answer 1

basically its to select multiple icons at one in case u want to move them as a group....

make the "box" bigger so that it touches icons and you'll see

Answer 2

To select multiple items.

Answer 3

so you can select multiple files at once and do stuff with them (like delete)