Why removing the Head of Linked List is O(1)

TL;DR: A linked list is a chain of nodes where each element knows its neighbor's location. While searching for an element takes O(n) time because you must jump through every preceding link, removing the first item is a constant-time O(1) operation. This makes them the ideal structure for high-performance queues. Arrays are usually the first thing we reach for, but they have a massive architectural overhead when you start messing with the front of the list. If you need to remove the first item in an array, the language has to shift every other element over to fill the gap. That is fine for ten items, but it is a performance killer for ten million. A linked list solves this by changing how we connect data in memory. How does a linked list actually store data? A linked list is a chain of nodes where each node contains its data and a pointer to the next node. Unlike arrays, these nodes don't have to live next to each other in a contiguous block of memory. Think of it as being daisy-chained