Why is absolute value used to find distances on a coordinate plane?

Well, darling, absolute value is used to find distances on a coordinate plane because it gives you the positive distance between two points, regardless of their direction. It's like measuring how far you are from a sale at the mall - it doesn't matter if it's to the left or right, just how far away you are. So, in math terms, absolute value helps us calculate the distance between points without worrying about the negative sign messing things up.