This has already made the rounds in the mainstream media so apologies if it’s old hat, but: Kent Norman, who is here at the University of Maryland, studies computer rage and has developed an elaborate taxonomy of user responses, ranging from “mouse barbecue” to such culinary delights as “hard disk on the half shell” (Season disk with salt, pepper and lemon juice; rub with butter. Wrap in foil; bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes. Remove foil; add more butter and brown. Enjoy!) to provide people with release mechanisms. His tone is light, but there is a serious point at stake: computers have the power to elicit seemingly disproportionate responses from their users, and a surprising number of presumably otherwise mild mannered folk have enacted acts of violence against the inanimate object which has stymied them in some way. Like “road rage” or “air rage,” computers have become a focal point for postmodern aggression.
Have you ever succumbed to computer rage? Take the survey and find out! And don’t miss the Complex and Simple Theory of Computer Rage presented in the paper presenation on the topic.
Posted by mgk at June 3, 2005 09:28 AMIt's funny. I and a few people I know have engaged in a lot of computer-destroying behavior, caused not by anger but rather boredom, curiosity and a surplus of old computer parts. Answering the "Have you ever...?" section of that survey made me sound like a computer-hating psychopath.
By the way, I'd strongly advise against ever trying to break a CD in half.
Posted by: Orin at June 3, 2005 05:09 PM | Link to CommentBack in my magnet-student days, I once got a valentine made out of an AOL CD with words scratched backwards into the paint (thus legible forwards on the verso). And a present wrapped in 3 1/4 inch floppies. There's a certain subset of people (from his commment, I think Orin is probably one of them) for whom computer parts are demystified to the degree that they can be treated as just materials.
The people who perpetuate actual acts of violence (with, that is, the assumed mindset behind their actions) are, I would think, not actually considering the computer as a fully inanimate object. I should clarify that, because of course they don't think it moves around, but people don't think of computers like lamps or stoves. You don't yell at your stove. You don't talk about its "memory." It doesn't have "master-slave relationships." (I thought of a bunch more ways in which we talk about computers like people one time, but I was high and don't remember them all.) Anyway, I think people who are are familiar enough with the computer to be in touch with its materiality can, perhaps paradoxically, abuse it horribly without anger; it's those for whom the machine is mystifying who act out rage.
Posted by: Jess at June 7, 2005 05:44 PM | Link to Comments/perpetuate/perpetrate/, please. Only one cup of coffee so far. I know, I know. I'm 3 hours earlier right now, but it's quarter to 3 even here.
Posted by: Jess at June 7, 2005 05:46 PM | Link to Comment(Ah, if only life was like Perl. Actually...perhaps it is.)
The funny thing is, even the geekier among us anthropomorphize computers. There's even a bit in the Jargon File on it:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/anthropomorphization.html
(Summary: Computer scientists often describe computers and computer programs in anthropomorphic terms not because they ascribe consciousness to computers, but because they have a mechanistic view of the human mind.)
Posted by: Orin at June 9, 2005 03:29 AM | Link to Comment