Slashdot Mirror
Correlation Between Stress and Technology?
marshman113 asks: "I'm an undergraduate Cognitive Science major at a famous public university and currently enrolled in a Stress and Disease course. Being somewhat of a techie myself, I've decided to write my term paper on the relationship between technology and stress. I'm sure all of you hard-working Slashdot readers experience a fair amount of stress, on a daily basis. Has the evolution of technology in the workplace (computer, internet, email, etc...), which is suppose to make your job easier, made it any less stressful? If so, how? If not, why?"
Will you please do my homework for me? Thanks!
Stress has existed down the ages! Just because a study shows an association between technology and stress this does not mean much. Any decent statistics student will tell you that CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION. This is a simple fact, and one that is often overlooked.
tim
Other people cause stress. So the mail server goes down, big deal. Unless people, like your boss, get all worked up over it.
Stress is a function of living beings, not machines.
KFG
It's always a balancing act, in my view. Yes, I get frustrated with hardware problems, software problems (stupid Office...crashed on my 3 times just last night on an otherwise rock stable box) and the like, but I also realize that I am a lot more productive and entertained, even if there are distractions. I am always entertained by people that talk about how much time the computers take and then they say something silly like "back when I was on a typewriter, blah, blah, blah" and I usually retort that they are usually doing the jobs of 4 or 5 staff people because of the computer, including graphics design, secretary and assistant.
Technology hasn't made it less stressful for me. Instead, with every new release of foo, expectations are heightened and project completion time tables are shortened based on the marketing brochures or eager sales reps who will say just about anything about the new foo to a desperate ear. I or anyone else in the group then feels the stress of not "living up to" the claims of the technology.
At the risk of oversimplifying, the one constant that I see affecting stress in my job and those around me is expectation.
As technology improves, the expectations placed are higher. Even if the facilities aren't there to achieve them, I'm being asked more seemingly insurmountable tasks.
Then again, being asked to "secure" a network....*grumbles*.
*unplugs internet connection*
+++
NO CARRIER
However, new technology lets me accomplish more in the same amount of time when compared with old technology. How much more? Enough. Now buy me a new G5 please.
You cannot rightfully make a broad, sweeping generalization about stress and computers because of the limitless range of their uses and functions. For most Slashdotters and geeks, computers are a hobby and a way to relieve stress. For secretaries, journalists and others who depend on computers solely for work, computers can be a source of horrible stress.
Many people play games on their computer to relieve stress. Others find new stress by trying to get their computer adjusted so that it can play games.
Computers have introduced a new kind of tool to the human race; one that can be used for a broader range of applications (in the old sense) than anything that came before them. Computers do not cause stress; people cause stress for themselves or allow outside forces to enhance or reduce their stress. To blame a machine as a source of stress is as stupid as blaming your dinner for a lack of taste.
-JemTechnology encourages stress: Sitting on the office chair in the cubicle in front of a monitor is not the best way to let those muscles relax and blood flow through your body. Unfortunately, if I am in the middle of working on some problem or complex stuff, I am too involved to stand up and take a walk or something.
Technology relieves stress: During natural breaks through my workday it's easier for me now to go to TheOnion, Google News or Slashdot and just take a mental break. Instant messaging is yet another distraction that can be bothersome sometimes, but generally allows you to communicate with a bunch of people you know and feel like you're in the middle of a friendly conversation.
Before email was widespread outside the academia, most of the interaction with your customers would be by phone, which if you're a developer can be a PITA, cause when the phone rings you have to stop whatever you're doing to take care of that immediately.
Nowadays I found myself dealing w/ customers thorough mostly email and (sometimes) IM, and it is so much easier to ignore it while on a coding rage and say deal with it once every hour. Customers still get a quick feedback and I can organize myself better.
Pretty interesting topic you have chosen, and one that not many people even think about. I know that I have not thought about this, or at least, not in this sense.
/. of course.
As any normal individual, I have a certain level of stress in my life. Both at work with a boss that refuses to recognize my contributions, and at home dealing with the teenager of the house who refuses to accept my authority.. for the most part, I would say that the technology in my house (3 servers, 1 desktop and 1 laptop, all mine!@#!@$) relieves some of this stress and tension. I love to sit down in front of my computer and play xpatience or pacman after an argument, and at work, I love to spend my day reading
So even though in these scenarios computers help relieve the stress, there are situations where the technology creates a lot more stress than we need, such is the case when things don't work as advertised.. or when that hardware keeps failing but you cannot duplicate it.. or maybe when no matter what you try, you can't get that program running/compiled..
So I would think that depending on the type of work that you do on your system, it is either a stress reliever or a stress source..
---
Never let your schooling interfere with your education.
If people get on your nerve, you can negotiate with them, yell at them, fire them, bribe them with donuts/lunch, etc. If a machine is not doing what you want, then you don't have these options. You may have to read an entire manual just to figure out how to make one tiny change. Thus, one seemingly thing turn into a major thing. The (almost) ideal interface is the Star Trek interface, and our machines don't have that. Of course people can be annoying also. Machines don't badmouth you behind your back and steal your girlfriend, for example. At least not yet.
Table-ized A.I.
This isn't the evolution of technology in the workplace. It's the evolution of stupidity in the user. At least what you mention about GUI apps for people who can't follow directions and web applications for people with broken browsers.
Generally, I'm fine using technology.
It's when other people use it, and screw up, and I have to bail them out, that I get stressed.
(he says, jokingly, 12 hours after having to reinstall the OS because a drive decided to cough up a lung... what stress?)
There is probably a correlation between technology and stress. However, it is not so simple. A more thourough investigation would lead to the conclusion that BAD technology is corelated to stress. It just sof happens that a lot of the technology people encounter in the workplace is not very good ( custom inhouse vb/java applications that serve the buisness need, but have horrible interfaces. riddled with bugs).
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Well, since I've been working in computers the whole time, computers themselves haven't made my life any less stressful. But some of the advances have helped.
For example, back in college, I supported a computer lab that didn't have a LAN or any hard drives. All of the original PCs had boot disks, and invariably, some student would take the boot disk, remove the little piece of tape off the write protect tab, and save their term paper to the boot disk. Then, they'd wonder why they couldn't find it a week later, on a different computer. Nowadays, those people are all in management at major software companies, mostly in the American southwest, but they can keep their files on shared drives, so they don't lose them, except when they click on attachments in Outlook.
The main technology that has made things less stressful has been quality search engines. It used to be really hard to figure out if a student had plagerized a paper - now, I know they all have. But seriously, now I can just type a few words in a search engine and figure out where they got their ideas.
A counter example: cell phones. Back when they were expensive, had short battery lives, and lousy coverage, I could actually go to a movie, a park, or a religious service without being called. Sure, its nice to be able to sit on hold with AAA if my car dies on the highway, but I could do with being a little less accessible the rest of the time.
Law is whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained. -- Aaron Burr
New information technologies only add to stress. The more up-to-date information you have, the more you are requested to be up-to-date. The mails have a tendency to arrive at the same time, and you are considered rude, or worse, improductive, if you leave them a long time without answering. The more ways you have to comunicate, the bigger are your chances to be interrupted at the worst possible moment (think cell phone). The easier the communication is, the easier it's to consider that you can work everywhere, home, plane, traffic jam...
The demands on your time and attention only grow with technology, and so stress grows. It's a bit of an edge example, but I've been a stock investor for the last 20 years, and it was much more peaceful when I only could check the quotes once a day in the morning papers.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
I think that technology and stress do not directly relate but that technology has created a faster pace. Technology creates 'higher and faster' expectations that not everyone can keep up with.
Falling behind creates stress.
I have been recently promoted. And I am now doing less technical stuff and more organizational stuff :) Guess what? Technical stuff is much less stressful... You are just doing your stuff and that is it.
I had someone pass me a copy of a magazine article once that described how much computer support (tech, web, etc) staff actually dislike taking vacation.
Why? because it's one of the few jobs where the work stacks up so much, that 5 minutes after you get back from vacation - regardless of how relaxing or fun it was - you're right back to the same (or greater) level of frustration and work stress that you had before you left....
After having been in the computer tech and internet world (support, as well as development), I can honestly say that I agree with this - especially for tech staff that are in smaller companies or offices where there isn't anyone to really cover your work while you're gone....
Worrying works!! 99% of all the stuff I worry about never happens
If it works, it's invisible. Nobody's stressed out by indoor plumbing or electric light.
Our lives are full of technology that doesn't work. Stress is when you're on deadline and the copier breaks down.
Computers, as currently implemented in the most widespread configurations, are a nightmare.
I would have to say more stressful. Deifinately. Just one technology by itself is not bad, but when you have to use a bunch of them together and have them interact it is easy for the stress to increase dramatically. However, I would say that more of my stress comes from the inability of my managers to understand the technologies that we use than from the technology itself. Troubleshooting a java application is one thing and having my manger scream "Just make it work!" at me because he does not understand that I cannot get 24bit color out of a legacy 8bit video card is something else.
I'm a unix sysdamin for a living. Most of the stresses in my life are directly related to technology, largely because I'm responsible for making the technology do what it was supposed to do when it doesn't.
When I get home, I fire up my PC with its whizzy net connection and surf or play Enemy Territory... or perhaps I see what Tivo watched for me, or pop in a DVD.
When I have time off, I like to travel-- car, airplane, boat, whatever.
It seems to me that technology may be the main cause of my stress, but it's just as large a reducer of stress in my life. What fun would a vacation be if I couldn't go somewhere else and see it? (and shoot pictures of it with my digital camera?) How insane would I be by now if I couldn't come home and blow off steam by blowing up your command post?
But then, what's technology, anyhow? Sure I enjoy a good book now and again, too. But even that took mass-production of paper and electric lighting to do... Does that count?
Technology has the potential to modify our expectations in almost every area of our lives. It changes our thoughts about safety. It changes our relationship to time. It changes how we expect others to communicate (whether we communicate that way or not - we are frequently hypocrites) What's more significant, is that it does not do this to us alone, it does it to everyone around us as well, so that our employer expects different things, our spouses, our schools, etc. Many times, the expectations that change are not reasonable at all.
Case in point:
I remember when I was growing up (12-16 years ago), my family lived in a very rural area. On Saturdays my mother would go into town for groceries and general shopping. She would be gone for about 3 hours. Occasionally, depending on how many places she went, how much she bought, if she went all the way into a town with a mall, she would be gone for 5 to 6 hours. She often forgot to tell my father she would be gone that long. On times like that, when she was gone for more than four hours, my father and I would step outside to look for her (this was irrational, as we could see about half a mile down the road, nevertheless we did it) and comment about how long she had been gone. We would look out the window more and more frequently as she was gone longer and longer. I know my father worried, but there wasn't much you could do short of getting in the truck and driving toward town. There were no cell phones (or if there were, we did not have one, and there were no cell towers around our house)
Flash-forward to today and you see a very different response to these "where are they?" situations. I've seen people dial someone's cell phone number over and over for hours trying to get hold of them. I've pretty much done the same thing myself, when I've been worried about my wife. When you do finally get hold of them, you are emotionally drained, relieved, and a little bit angry.
"Are you, OK!!!?" you demand of them.
"I had the cell phone turned off," they say, or, "It was in my purse and I didn't hear it ring." They even seem a bit puzzled by your concern. In your mind, they were stranded somewhere, or kidnapped, or worse.
My point (and I'm sorry for the long ramble) is that technology isn't exactly the culprit here, it's the way we let it change what we expect. The ability to reach out and touch someone no matter where they are makes us fear the worse when it ceases to be possible.
I think there are plenty of other similar relationships between technology and expectation, but I'll let someone else look at them, my lunch break is almost over.
--
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Growing up with certain technology, I feel like a lot of technology simply makes my life easier with a lot less stress. There is an intrinsic understanding of this technology (programming VCRs, being able to operate a computer without many erros and whatnot - simple stuff) that allows many people of my age to use these things flawlessly. I think it's stressful for people who need to learn something new (my father trying to program the VCR for example or even myself when I'm working with a new programming language or something like that) and have a hard time adjusting to it.
I <3 my $0.02
I see stress as a limiting factor in what can be accomplished in life. Regardless of the technologies available to a person, stress can be increased, and will be (as needed) until it effects the job.
It's all about capacity. Technology may have made our jobs easier (in comparison to the pre-technology period), but by freeing that capacity for other tasks, tasks are thusly assigned. Jobs now include more, and capacity is tested again to find the point at which stess creates the limit.
Yeah, that sounds good.
Sig
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars
Managing people is stressful because - at worst - you're being bitched at by both your bosses and your subordinates the whom you're supposed to care about as a "good manager".
The owls are not what they seem
I don't worry about my next meal, or being the next meal of a predator.
.44 inch holes in him without breaking a sweat, then call someone miles away to collect the body without even raising my voice.
I never want for clean water.
I have clothes that will protect me from nearly any weather conditions I am likely to encounter.
I have a mode of transportation that can easily take me from place to place at 100 miles per hour, in total comfort.
I expect to live to fully twice the age I would expect absent technology.
In spite of my "unnatural" long life I expect my shelter to last even longer . . . unless the land becomes more valuable than the building on it.
If anyone comes into that shelter to take what I have I can poke
I like technology. Makes life much less nasty, brutish, and short.
-Peter
PS: I anxiously await a counter-argument about car accidents, chemical food preservatives, and chemical warfare.
An extra point if you refrain from mentioning President Bush. Half a point if you mention him, but manage to refer to him by a proper name and/or title.
-P
Public surveys are nothing new, especially when it comes to higher learning.... When you get right down to it, education is about getting more done with less effort. No matter which path this researcher takes, either in private study or through public survey, his results will be inconclusive. When results are inconclusive, why bother with theory and intense study? I'd phone this one in too, if I were him. Or, perhaps, choose a different topic.
After 35 years in the technology business, I think I can say with some authority that it's not the technology that causes the stress.
It's management.
Sorry but try as you might, /. is never gonna institute the "-1 Karma Whore" mod, so get over it.
Not more than you need, just more than you want
you aren't too busy to post on slashdot...
There's no question that contact with living things is a stress reducer. Plants, animals, and even other human beings. Machines can't really do that for me.
Granted I only mean physical contact. Having to deal with the needs of said living things is another story.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Now in addition to doing my own work, I have to write some guy's term paper.
I realize this is a joke but even before reading any of the comments here I was thinking the same thing. Technology making life more stressful? Please. Kiddo, in my day we actually had to work when we wrote term papers. Nowdays, thanks to technology (and the fact that you don't seem to understand the meaning of the phrase "independent work"), you can get your term paper largely written for you by posting a question on slashdot and cut-and-pasting the highly-modded comments into your paper. You claim that you're a techie. Why don't you use your own experiences to construct your arguement instead of cobbling together the collective wisdom of the slashdot community?
Often I'll look up from one of my screens and realize that my entire body is tense and I haven't taken a full breath in what must be a couple of hours. Between sitting at a computer all day, listening to the radio in my car, and turning the t.v. on at home, I can often spend an entire day under technology's spell. Every now and then I'll come up out of the technotrance and just sit or putter around for a couple of hours with all of the post-lightbulb inventions switched off and feel myself returning to the real world.
It seems I must unplug myself for at least a few hours a day to recharge.
As far as IT is concerned, it is *not* stressful.
Nobody dies when you foul something up. It doesn't affect a whole lot, maybe some company's profit margin, or delivery of some merchandise.
Try being an airplane mechaninc, where you are held criminally liable for every corpse related to something that breaks if you've signed off on it.
Maybe a fire fighter, where when you don't do your job correctly people die.
Policeman, when you fail to do your job, you die, innocent people die...
Compared to these, IT is a cakewalk.
And yeah, I know that IT has a strong influence in many of these fields, but it is abstracted from the first-hand death inherent in each.
Truth be told, I find the human part of technology to be more stressful than the technology itself. The gadgets I have around me are tools. The people I have around me are demands. "Get this done by the next trade show! Long term impact of this be damned!"
Maybe I'm oversimplifing a bit. I just find the tappity tap at my keyboard parts of the day to be the most serene for me. Boy do I hate when the phone rings...
"Derp de derp."
Sounds like you have stress due to a shitty job, not due to technology.
I have three computers here, a couple projects, customer calls and am in charge of network security. Yet I don't have any stress. I have priorities, and I follow them. I too sometimes work overtime, but on my own terms...if I can't work overtime, I just say I can't. Obviously if there's so much work that they need you to stay late to do it, they need you, period.
A lot of stress is caused by poor coping skills. You can say "no," you know. In fact, in my experience the ability to say "no" is important. All my managers have had that skill, and that's how they got their jobs. People respect a helpful worker, but they hate a "yes" man. Just be sure to say "yes" enough to make yourself useful, and there will suddenly be less to bitch about.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Because, in a serendipitous coincidence, on slashdot's front page, you'll find and article titled Timeshifting: Cram More into Life.
If you read the description on the front page, you'll find a person who's seeking to use technology to its fullest to push out all the "dead space" in his life.
Eventually, there's nothing that technology can't provide. That is, the only thing technology can't provide is nothing.
I'd argue that, on occasion, people need a little nothing -- quiet, distractionless, reflecting time that you could call 'down' time -- and we're getting less and less of it.
In fact, we are so used to getting no down time that we don't even know what we're missing. All this distraction is like a diet of fast food: tastes good at the time, but nutritionally deficient, if not outright destructive.
But maybe I'm just old fashioned.
"It's an erotic, spectacular scene that captures the thrusting, violent, vibrant world Bohemian spirit..."
Assuming you were driving and your cell phone came on and you were suddenly drawn into a conference call, your lack of attention to driving (and possible slowing down to avoid an accident as attention is divided) your apparent change of attitude in driving is observed by other drivers. The change lanes to get around you, or sit there and put up with it (possibly stewing over the situation) other drivers shift to accomodate, and so on. Perhaps time at work, to keep your job, places stress upon the family and how they interact with others. And so on.
It does seem that KISS has been thrown out the window, to make life easier for someone, somewhere, but a lot of people are being put upon to make that happen. Maybe someone is suffering because they've slaved away under stress to give you the tools and devices you depend upon. Is more actually getting done, or is technology simply a circular treadmill with several people on it at once?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So your stress level has gone up because the company you work for has decided to lower the stress level of their customers, who wanted GUIs with on-screen help, intuitive interfaces, and the like. So the company has decided that the people who pay them should have less stress, while the people who they pay can handle a little more.
Sorry, but it seems pretty reasonable to me.
- The Amazina Llama
Any stress I have in my job was not directly caused by technology. But, it is caused because every assumes that technology makes things faster.
As an example, the assumption: we can support a new process before the business has fully defined it because software isn't like buildings, it can be changed in no time.
I don't see things in black and white; I see the gray. Heck, I actually see in color, which makes things more difficult
I don't see how technology can cause stress... I don't need any time to myself... I have to work overtime so that I don't get outsourced.
He was trying to be funny!
I have to disagree.
Users havn't changed. They have always and will always want their software to do everything possible to help them. Its just that in the old days the technology only did so much and the user was forced to do/understand/remember more. These days the software can simply do more so the user expects it to.
I wouldn't call it the evolution of stupidity in the users. It is, however, an overall de-evolution of users. This is by management design. Payroll is almost always the most expensive part of any business. In efforts to manage cost, businesses will invariably utilize available technology to replace *thinking* workers (skilled, intelligent people cost more) with workers who can't think their way out of a paper bag. This is natural, because idiots cost less and are more readily replaced.
Lowering labor cost is a Holy Grail of most corporate management teams. Be it outsourcing to countries like India and lovely China, or doing everything possible to dumb-down any job so the only requirement is a pulse and an ability to follow simple (elementary school level) directions. ("Hi, thank you for calling tech. support...No, sir...I'm sorry...I have to follow the script...I don't know that...I can't...did you reboot?...but I...my head would explode if I tried to answer that question...")
Don't blame users for being stupid. Blame management. I'll say again: it's by design. </rant>
With that in mind, has technology made us less fearful? I'm sure the average person is much more fearful. People fear change and the unknown. Personally, I find myself less fearful. However I can't say if that is due to technology or my own maturity (as you get older you suffer less stress).
UNIX/Linux Consulting
I personally don't get stressed out at my job about my deadlines (I work as a programmer), I worry more about what I'll be doing if I ever want to move on from where I am. It used to be that a Degree in Computer Science is all you would need, but It really doesn't seem that way anymore. I worry more about what I'll be doing 10 years from now than I worry about what I have to do today.
I do believe that Technology can lead to more stress. Between e-mail, IM, my pager (alphanumeric two-way, my cell phone and the phone on my desk, there are so many ways I can be interrupted or pulled in different directions. Having said that, I think you have hit it on the head that one must learn to deal with (or as you said cope with) all the possible sorts of interruptions.
Life is a series of choices. I have choosen to leave my cell phone turned off unless I need to call someone or I am somewhere that I can be interrupted. I choose how quickly I answer a page. I try to only check my e-mail when I know I'll be able to deal with the requests and queries. While I won't tell my boss I'm too busy to talk to him, I have been known to say "no" to a request or ask if we can continue a discussion later. A favorite question "should be" 'which item can I drop off my plate in order to pick up the new one your pushing at me?'
When one learns and accepts new technologies, you must also learn how to deal with them. Following known and defined priorities is always a good decision.
Microsoft thinks you are less intelligent than a nematode worm.
No. MS thinks that their program is so complex, the average office user could use a mini-AI to help them figure it out.
And they're right. Most folk who use office don't care about the program's features--they just want to get whatever they're doing done.
What is scariest is that there are people who actually need stuff like that.
Stress? Not from my systems. It's from the don't-getitude all around me. I'm constantly fighting with people who have more power and less understanding.
Scott Adams has documented this phenomemon in one of his Dilbert management books.
This guy is going about it right. For research, espically of human subjects, you notice something that you think might be related, like technology and stress. Well just because you think it might be related, doesn't mean it is. The next step is to gather some observational evidence. This can be watching people, taking surveys (as in this case), and so on. You then see if the observational evidence supports your theory. It's not going to give you anything more than a correlation, but if you don't even see that, you need to rethink your theory.
If the observational evidence is in line with your theory, you can then move on to designing experiements to actually test it. But you need to do the observation first. One reason is that experiements, espically with people, are expensive. You'd better not be wasting a bunch of money on something you have no support for at all other than an intuition. Another is that the observational data can help you decide HOW to design an experiment to test your theory. It's not so easy as just going and doing a test, you have to design one that will test what you want and can actually be implemented. Doubly hard with humans, who can fingure out what you are trying to do to them.
So, provided he's planning on actually running the experiments, this is the first step to good science. Also, being that it is just an undergrad term paper, he may just write about the obvservational data. There is nothing wrong with gathering obversational evidence, analyzing it, then writing a paper on what it could indicate and how experiments could be done to test that.
Stress is a response, not a stimulus.
Well, hey, I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage.
My CEO doesn't have the ability to say "no" to potential clients (we don't make custom software, but it sure seems like it), so I'm left architecting solutions and don't have time to always do things right or to make them easily integrated with our other products that suffer from this as well.
I can't say no because we're a start-up and aren't doing so hot, yet it's not easy finding a job these days despite my experience and credentials because 1) trade-school graduates are cheaper (and managers eventually learn why, but not soon enough for my benefit), or 2) everything's being out-sourced.
So, go for you that you enjoy things. Really. But not everyone is so lucky. This is a competitive market and it doesn't get easier when cheaper labor exists that can get (barely) get the job done (notice I didn't say "right").
We are expected to deliver faster because in many cases technology improves by allowing us to do the same task faster and faster or in a more efficient manner (think of micro-waves, dish washers, GHz processors, High RPMs hard disks, etc.). In turn, it is supposed to give us more time. But what do we do, or rather what are we expected to do with that extra time?
How come we are working over time when technology allows us today to print/write/code/format/spellcheck/indent/syntaxhi ghlight/etc. much faster than before?
I have that awkward impression that I'm expected not only to be quicker, but to produce a lot more than before simply because my printer is faster, my cell phone sends me bigger SMS messages, my CPU is idle waiting for me, telling me that I'm too slow... The human brain's clock speed hasn't improved for a little while, but, mind you, I'm not up to date with the latest e-news on the subject...
A human body is designed to sustain a high level of stress only for a short period of time. In a stressful situation, our blood pressure and adrenaline level rises, and we are ready to either fight or escape the source of stress. In many technology related work environments, workers undergo such a level of stress almost every day and, if not dealt with properly, can lead to the equivalent of a MechWarrior's thermal shutdown; your body says "Sorry boss, I know they're shootin' their lasers at ya, but I give up".
I remember before online-banking I didn't mind waiting in line at the bank. Now, it is somehow less conceivable to wait for 15mn, when you can do the same transaction in 30 seconds from a web browser. Did that buy me 14:30 mn of free, relaxing time? Somehow, I'm not sure... Since I didn't spend 15mn meditating, relaxing, looking around, standing up, while waiting in line at the bank, I can instead continue my coding... In the long run, which alternative is more desirable for a human being?
For instance, you assume that everyone who ownas a computer is completely capable of using it. This really isn't the case. I know relatives who are completely literate, good people who use clippy to quick search help things. (1/4 times, it ends in a phone call to me seeing if I can help.) But, just because YOU are insulted by Clippy doesn't mean he doesn't help thousands of other people (and save me dozens of questions from my non-computer savvy uncle and grandparents). It says nothing of their intelligence, just their familiarity with computers.
Technology failures causes me stress and I dont mean the Sys/netadmin systems failures. I'm talking about when my PDA phone breaks down.
I love my Kyocera 7135. It helps me track all my projects and appointments, my phone numbers, and I can surf where ever I am. However, I'm a tad clumsy and I've dropped my Kyocera 7135 maybe 3-4 times. That was enough to cause my phone to a pretty undependable state. Right now, my phone crashes a couple times a week and once every few weeks, it crashes bad enough where I lose all my data and I have to resync. Now that's stressful.
I was out of town when this happened and I really needed my contacts to get in touch with my friends (it's been years since I memorized phone numbers.. remember the pager days with pager code? =P). It was quite stressful to not have all my contacts and all the new data since my last sync disappeared.
Technology is a wonderful thing but as a part of evolution, technology becomes a part of our lives. When they fail, it causes us stress. For those of you who dont have PDA phones, think about the last time your hard drive failed to a unrecoverable state. Even with backups, the amount of time you have to spend to replace it is stressful.
Now, it is somehow less conceivable to wait for 15mn, when you can do the same transaction in 30 seconds from a web browser. Did that buy me 14:30 mn of free, relaxing time? Somehow, I'm not sure...
I've previously thought about the issues you outlined above, and I've come to the conclusion that if there is something in my life which gives me back a certain amount of time, it is my responsibility to fill that time the way I see fit. If I don't do that, then the universe will fill it for me.
Now, I may have to consciously fill that time with slacker time, but what's wrong with that? I'd rather "waste" time on my own terms than let someone else do it for me. After all, it's the only real resource over which I have control. Everything else ultimately gets shared with everyone else, whether or not I like it. Granted, there are these things we call "commitments" that take my time, but I actually do have the choice whether or not to fulfill each one of those. I just have to deal with the potential fallout if I decline one or more of those. Then again, there may not be actual fallout for some of them; I may just be afraid of nothing.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Probably the biggest change with all this technology is how fast life is these days. They say that the speed of life/business and everything in general is 10 times what your parents, parents used to endure. The fact that people can reach me anytime, anywhere and so easily (i mean it takes time and effort to hand write a letter) means that more work comes my way, and it's a constant flow. I appreciate voicemail, that is, being able to sit back and review in my own time - but it's use seems a rarity in the days of cells, pagers and instant messaging. *sigh* the age of information? the age of overload (hello ADHD) more like.
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Esobofh - Currently drinking fresh mango juice.
Like he's really gonna get any answers from an ask slashdot? When was the last time there was a useful answer on ask slashdot. I don't think I've ever seen one.
I disagree. This issue is likely more related to the expansion of the user base. I think it's unreasonable to expect every technology user to become an expert; especially considering the proliferation of technology in our everyday lives. For a technology tool to be useful it must also contain a certain amount of intuitive capabilities. Intuition is generally derived from past experience. Since developers and systems designers typically have control over what and how information is presented to the user it is not always practical to expect the user to just "know" what to do next. Perhaps they could burn time reading the poorly constructed directions that the developer created but the reality is usually such that the user just needs to get a task accomplished. Not to become an expert in the technology?
btw...a broken browser is a relative observation. Firfox is "broken" to me when I view certain pages that work fine in IE and Netscape.
Technology is not limited to computers and electronic things. Technology by definition is the practical application of knowledge. It's the shear number of "practical applications of knowledge" that have me feeling overwhelmed, stressed and out of control. So many applications of technology have left me feeling naive and ignorant despite my best attempts to keep up and the fact that I once was considered to be on top of these things. Now I have to be even more concerned with the possibility that what I learned and applied yesterday being considered foolish and flawed tomorrow.
Stress is a reaction to an environmental pressure. The proliferation of new technology certainly has increased mental and physical environment pressures. Someone or something will be affected and therefore stress will always be an absolute consequence of new technology.
This is still an example of how job choice affects stress, not how technology affects it.
I should also point out I took a pay cut to take my current job. Last year, even with the extra income from Webslum I made 10% less than I did in 2002. But I had SO much less stress, a better relationship with my wife, and a much more positive outlook. No more shitty black metal poetry in my journal! I'm even starting to save money again.
In summation: I'm sorry your job sucks, but you're the one who took it. Even in a bad market, there are stress free options, but many of them require hard decisions. Like telling your CEO that a product can't be kludged together without becoming unmanagable and requiring a massive amount of work a year down the road. Which is, of course, the sort of thing a good architect tells his boss up front, rather than slipping dates and looking like a fool.
BTW: Even if they eventually want custom features, most of the time, your clients will be perfectly satisfied with what you have now, FOR now, and you can slowly work desired features into the main codebase. This is the ONLY way I've seen customer driven software work. Otherwise, you're stuck supporting multiple code bases, and custom hacking EVERYTHING from here on. Besides, I guarantee your client will need a few weeks (or months, depending on the product) to learn and utilize the current features. In that time, you could engineer a great solution, as opposed to delivering a crappy one right now.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
a correlation between stress and capitalism?
I bet the sum of the stress caused by capitalism far exceeds the sum of the stress caused by technology for all of society.
Technology can be made almost stress-free. Can capitalism?
You should have used the users keyboard, and beat him/her to death with it.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
While I hate the actual architecture of the server side... I love Zenworks...
Zen4 and NDPS with network printers (or LPD computers).
everything is self healing... and automated.
And I can remotely control (view) any one of the 3400 computers that connect to my 5 servers all running novell 5.1.
all computers are imaged over each two week period...
all WOL and are ready when the user comes in...
each with the appropriate printers and any updated MSIs silently installed when they log in....
and policies distributed to the users based on the groups they are a member of.
Dont let your boss read this, if you too know how to setup your network correctly, for you may be out of a job....
We simply act stressed to keep us employeed
or if your one of those egomaniacs who claims he/she knows what they are doing, but cant seem to ever get their network stable, ignore this... since you already knew better.
From my perspective the greatest problem we have with technology is separation: we find it more and more difficult to separate ourselves from the demands of our working environment.
Technology now enables us to take our work with us. And the demands of the economy to increase productivity demand that we KEEP our work with us all the time. So it's difficult for people to separate themselves from their work. Which causes conflict and conflict causes stress.
It doesn't HAVE to be like this but for it to happen there has to be a contract between work and leisure so one doesn't overwhelm the other. Such contracts are rare - it takes enlightened management to recognize that workers shouldn't cart their working lives into homes without great reason.
Tools are required to manage information and we're only now starting to develop those to keep us from being overwhelmed by the spam of our daily working lives.
It's not just the fact that people cause stress regardless of technology, or that they are stupid. Technology creates stress through people by forcing them to rely on complicated things--things more complicated than they can understand. So when your boss screams at you for not having the server up, it's not because he only thinks he can't get by without it, he actually can't get by without it.
That reliance on complex, unnatural mechanisms is a breeding ground for stress because, hey, complex, unnatural things are more prone to breaks. And unlike more physical things (say, compare a piece of paper to outlook), what you can expect to break changes with each version of the program, operating system, computer, and user.
Complexity does cause stress. People are just doing the best they can. The technological enviornment people work in, however, causes them to appear stupid.
And, of course, some people actually are just stupid.