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People Feel Loyalty To Computers
stoobthealien writes "According to BBC News researchers have discovered that people have loyalty to specific computers because of a tendancy to associate "human attributes to them" - and I thought it was just me that speaks to my PC...."
Wait until they perfect voice synth. Then we are really going to hear it!
My iBook loves me. No, really! My iPod told me so, it said the iBook was just shy and didn't think I felt the same way.
But I do....
<3
I hope you die painfully and alone.
What I feel towards my Windows box is something other than loyalty....
Sadly our computers seem less inclined to share that love...
"Open the pod bay door HAL...."
Three Squirrels
In a college computer lab, all of the terminals in a group are supposed to be identical and interchangable. However, it seems like users are building up a trust relationship with the computer they've used sucessfully before rather than wanting to take the chance with a computer they haven't met yet. It's almost as if users are presuming that most unfamiliar computers will fail on them...
If people can feel loyalty to something as unintelligent as an automobile, then it is not at all unexpected that they feel that way towards their computers.
i use the same computer cause i don't feel like setting up my damn windows desktop, bookmarks, window sizes.
but admittedly i talk to my computer. swear it, even threaten it. i wish it could hear me.
I don't know about talking, but I do flip off my computer a awful lot and cus it out.
As far as I am conserned all computers are stupid SOBs.
Does that count as giving my computer human attributes?
This could lead to an over dependence on electronically-generated news and information.
Ground breaking stuff for slashdot.
next! <hits CTRL-R>
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Now we know which one had the hidden stash of pr0n!
All I know is, my computer has a much better fashion sense than this guy from Penn State...
(plaid on plaid! I mean einstein could do it, but that ain't exactly the same!)
That's it. Award karma accordingly.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
In most college classrooms, professors don't particularly care to assign seats to anybody, yet students for the most part tend to seat themselves in more-or-less the same positions anyway. I wonder if this is related to want to have a favorite seat in the computer room.
Don't anthropomorphize computers. They hate it when you do that.
...When your computer has an AI program installed.
There could be other reasons for this. At my school we have a computer lab - and some computers ARE better than others, even though they are all the "same" computer.
One for example freezes every 95 seconds after you login - so you have to save what you are doing and reboot.
Some of them seem prone to accidently give you administrator priviliges as well. So there are other reasons...
I go much further than that! I name ALL my computers, even the XT in the closet.
I know, I'm a nerd.
"Black holes are where God divided by zero." - Steve Wright
No really. I want to make a joke... badly! But I... I... I... pah!
Besides, I *know* all my systems hate me! Except for the old DG3704 in the corner.. it's different... not like the other machines.
Amateurs discuss tactics. Professionals discuss logistics.
My computer loves me! It never breaks down, and well it feels sick, it lets me know.
But, actually, I think some people may produce more... harmonious fields... that computers may pick up/interact with. I can't count the number of times I've "fixed" a computer by just being around it.
We can't get my mum off the 386 laptop, since she loves WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS so much, and she likes the layout of the keys.
She does have trouble with the internet sometimes, but she takes that as the price worth paying to stick with her beloved laptop.
Yeah, well when I was at university I only used certain computers because they were the only ones with the screen facing a wall, so people couldn't see the naughty things I was getting up to.
Also these were the computers with stuff I had already installed on them, so I went back to those so I didn't have to install the programs again.
That's probably a more likely explanation.
I don't think we have enough information to draw conclusions based on the article.
- Do the computers that folks were willing to wait for have additional applications loaded?
- Are they perhaps known to be the most stable ones out of a given set?
- Did different machines have different monitors, keyboards, and mice?
- Are they in a location that makes them more desireable (lighting, temperature, lack of people, etc)
There are plenty of factors that influence choices such as this. Unless they took steps to ensure that the computers were 100pct identical in every way, the conclusions they have reached are suspect. The extrapolations they make about people blindingly trusting computers even more so.
A computer is a tool. Just like an artisan may have a favorite tool for a task a user may have a favorite computer for a task. I don't see anything too earth-shattering here.
If I'm going to be sitting at someone else's computer for more than a few minutes at work, I'd like that computer to have editors, compilers, putty, etc. installed. I like using my computer more because it has my work on it. Does that conut as loyalty?
Of course, this also presents an interesting conundrum. My current computer has had every single part replaced since I bought the first iteration way back in 1998. Of course, not everything was replaced at the same time, but rather a gradual process of upgrades over the years.
So, is it really the same computer I started with? Or is it really some kind of sinister imposter only pretending to be my computer?
"A better advertising strategy might be to portray computers as something durable and reliable, something that grows with you," Prof Sundar told BBC News Online.
they can't do that. No, seriously.
This means that the industry would have to get off the treadmill of constant upgrades. It is no secret that MS is upset with the slow rate of people upgrading to XP. Most people now only upgrade when there is a definite need for it.
This would be the end of the world as they know it, and I feel fine.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Sometimes people also show a preference for a particular location in a room (near the exit, by a window, close to the printer, next to the machine that the cute chick likes to use). Other times, one machine will have objectively determinable capabilities that others lack (good in-focus monitor, fastest processor, mouse that works properly). Pure observation will not always reveal these other factors.
A better advertising strategy might be to portray computers as something durable and reliable, something that grows with you, Prof Sundar told BBC News Online.
Sounds like a hard act when the dam thing is obsolete in 3 years and even the most reliable PCs would be near the bottom compared to the average household appliance.
How many people name their computers? I do, and it takes me a bit to figure out names for them. I refer to them by their name usually, which causes my non-geeky friends to stare at me. Any one else does this compulsively? What is the name of your computer?
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
Oh my god, I HAVE A PARALLELL PORT FETISH.
At my place of work, there's a pool of computers and its first come first serve. There are various factors for choosing a computer for the day in the pool... There's the flat-screen VS CRT issue, there's the near-the-door VS corner VS window issue, there's the where's the nice-chick-gonna-sit-today issue. So I can see that you make preferences toward a particular computer, but is it because of the computer? hardly.
Bah I whould _never_ insult Maria by calling her that!
FRA: STFU GTFO
I have zero attachment to my computers. I don't talk to them, I don't feel anything more for them than I would a hammer or a drill. They're equipment to maintain. If it breaks, I will either fix it or throw it out.
...
Rather than seen as a preference for a particular computer, maybe the selection is being made based on the seating location in the room and the computer just happens to be there. Sounds like we need some controls.
In a lab full of identical machines, the crappiness of Windows and the hardware vendors using the cheapest parts they can find means some of those computers will run problem-free, and some will be incurably flaky and crashy.
When someone who just wants to get their God damned work done with a minimum of hassle needs to use a lab computer, which computer do you think they'll choose:
1) One that has on a previous occasion eaten some of their unsaved work due to a crash,
or
2) one where everything went fine and they didn't have to obsessively hit "Save" every minute out of fear, or redo what they were working on from scratch because the computer shit the bed?
http://www.fu-fme.com/
Your computer is a tool, nothing more. Does anyone feel loyal to a spoon?
While people do grow fond of their machines, many people just hate them. Obviously the real meaning of this post is that the tools around us can be given human emotions. Some people hate their cars for instance, while other people just love them. Many more people will just tell you its a car, who cares?
Perhaps if we spend a lot of time using a perticular tool, human nature helps us treat the tool like we would another person.
Or, perhaps I just woke up and can't form intelligent thoughts?
-
It'd be interesting to see how they actually conducted the tests, because I know people tend to sit in the same places in class over the course of a semester and that they seem to find analogous places to sit even for different classes when they're in different rooms (and this in the absence of any computers whatsoever). Maybe they're not as much attached to that one particular computer as they are to a certain "comfort zone" within the computer lab? Perhaps as a control study, they should make individual computers easily recognizable and then move the computers around to see whether the users move accordingly to stay with the computer or whether they would stay with the location and use the new computer there. I'd also be interested in seeing whether there is a difference in the level of attachment between Mac and PC users. Anyways, there are lots of variations with the parameters one can play with to tease apart this problem, and I'd love to see the researchers delve more indepth into them.
Did this stupid fucking guy ever think that people wanted to use particular computers just because they worked better than others in the lab, or had different programs installed, or weren't infected with viruses, etc? That's a shitty "study" if he jumps to the conclusion that this happens because people anthromorphise computers. All he can conclude from this study is that students using computer lab computers tend to prefer specific ones.
i feel different levels of affection and attachment to different parts of my computer. i sit here looking at the insides of my tower which i never put the side on, and i feel differently about each piece of equipment in there.
i hate it when people blame the whole computer for something that is the fault of a specific part, or operating system.
Of course when you introduce computers (or any kind of equipment) into the equation, something resembling "loyalty" can come into it, but even then it's often simply a matter of "I know this machine works"/"I like the theme that's installed on this one"/"I saved my files on this hard drive".
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Perhaps there is a force stronger than sentiment dictating what computer terminals a person is "loyal" to. This is becuase even in public terminals, there will be stuff that is saved after a session. For example, I always use computer S59 at a local lab not only becase of sentiment, but also because of the fact that someone took the security software off of it, allowing me to change the keyboard to Dvorak. Others might have documents saved on the hard disk, or pages bookmarked on a certain computer.
When I was is school still, I didn't choose a particular computer, but one where I had someone to talk to while I ignored the lecture.
Long before its fans spun to life and its circuits surged with electricity, I was there picking out the components with love and great care.
Later I assembled it oh so carefully, trying to set things up for maximum efficiency.
It's fast, it's stable. It entertains me, it enlightens me, it serves as a window to the rest of the world. I can trust my computer (it even runs Windows XP Pro!). I have everything just the way I like it, when I use my computer I'm highly efficient. Its like an extension of my body.
And when things break or stop working just right, I lovingly nurture them back to health.
I love my computer. I hope my computer loves me.
*raises glass of milk* This one's for you, my love.
clifgriffin > blog
Spend a few minutes talking to any user of an Apple product and you'll understand that Apple Gets It on this topic. Macs, iPods, etc, are all very personable computers, with interfaces designed to feel very organic (like the pulsing, heartbeat-like glow on sleeping monitors / iBooks, rounded edges on windows, shadows, etc).
Dodge also Got It in a big way back with the Neon, though unrelated to cars. Anyone remember the ads that had the Neons bouncing up and down and saying "Hi!"? Anyone who owned a Neon knows that everything down to the horn's sound reinforces that image :) (Yes, I owned one of those too...)
Cryptic Allusion - New Mac and Dreamcast Games!
My computer knows when I'm angry at it, it's tough love - you have to show the beast who the boss really is !
really isa really iss eally his deally iss reay is bzzt bzz t bzzzzt
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
But not because I associate human qualities to it. It's because I love using it. I gain knowledge, entertainment, and mindless relaxation time from it.
.avi's from my neighbors IRC server whenever he gets something new.
/., or playing a game for a few minutes to test a hex edit or something. The possesiveness comes in when she starts trying to hold the computer over my head (not literrally) and saying she is going to sell it or smash it. Then, as anyone else would with any item they own, I get possessive and protective. Then she turns around and accuses me of liking the computer more than I like her. Well, no, I am just trying to protect a several thousand dollar investment from senseless destruction by a crazed raging woman! BTW, she DID smash my last puter. Dell P4 2.0Ghz, 100Gb 7200 RPM, Geforce 4 4200 64Mb OC'd, 512Mb RDRAM, all useless after she smashed it on the floor and stomped on it. Luckily the 21" Trinitron monitor only suffered a crack in the corner of the case. Wheww!
I play games on a daily basis, listen to or burn music at least twice a week, and I watch
But, I do get POSESSIVE of my system. My wife hates my computer because she thinks that she has to compete with it. Now, before anyone starts spewing crap about women and computers and competing and all that, let me clarify by stating that my wife is very insecure from a previous marriage. I spend two hours a day max on my puter when she is home. When she is not home, I have my fill. When she is home, I spend a cumulative 2 hours checking emails, reading
Anyway, if pressed, I guess I would say that the only human attribute I give to my puter is mischief. But I don't beleive that is attributable soley to my system. I think the OS has more than a little to do with that. (Read: Windows XP Pro still has some issues under heavy usage, ie. running Sacred while downloading 400Mb zip file AND leeching files from neighbors server)
Halitosis - (n.) Halle Berry's Camel Toe.
I sort of expected an article about people preffering to use thier own PCs and going to lengths to not have to use someone elses or a public terminal.
/., but I can see some psych major wanting to use a specific PC because it had never crashed on her/him before, but the one over there _always_ crashes when trying to save a Word doc. There may be a bit of truth to this midnset, I have Windows boxes that crash once in a blue moon, and I some that crash daily, mostly due to what is loaded/running. Or, maybe that psych major just happens to go to the copmuter lab when the sun and moon are aligned just so, and the PCs birthday and the users birthday happens to correspond with the orbit of Jupiter and it IS the magic PC that never crashes.
But, after I RTFA, there seem to more questions than answers. For example, were they Windows PCs? I don't ask just because this is
Or were some people willing to wait so they could use a Mac? I do this all the time. Sure I could write up that documentation at work, but I'd rather go home and do it on my Mac. OK, maybe I'm crazy if I specifically bring work home so I can do it on Mac. Yes, certianly a bit crazy....
"None of us are as dumb as all of us." - meeting mantra
Habits are simply economically efficiently ways of doing things. For example, taking a certain route to work everyday means you don't have to figure out how to get to work each day. You save time and brain power.
I'm sure I'm not the only one that has certain places I prefer to sit. I'm comfortable with the view, etc, that they provide. Computers are simply an extension of that.
This is nothing new. It is in the nature of humans to anthropomorphize unpredictable objects. Men have done this with ships for millenia. And cars, and etc.
My server cackles and sneers when I try to run a newly written script. As does my wife. Only the cat shows any sympathy.
"The tendency to treat computers as human could lead to people favouring or even blindly accepting computer-generated information, to the point of depending on it over superior alternatives, warned Prof Sundar. "
It is very true, I goto university and I still (after 2 years, and being on dean's list for both) not used the library for any research; google (my favorite cluster of pcs) can dish up information quicker then any libarian could and quite frankly more accurate if you know how to search properly.
However, I am loathe to give it up because that's the machine that I played and beat Dark Forces on when I was in graduate school. (After my qualifying exams, I went home and played DF for about 4 days straight. Ah--those were the days!)
Craig Steffen
http://www.craigsteffen.net
you're merely too SCSI for your computer to want to mate with you!!
:-(
I have trouble myself... according to my internet personals i'm not 'IBM Compatible'
I don't really talk to my computers per say (Except, of course, the occasional expletive if something goes wrong) But certainly I attribute human characteristics to them.
:)
For example, one of the machines at work has a tendency to go into "sleep" mode and can't be revived without shutting them off. I tell my boss it has narcolepsy. Another won't connect to the network drive (where the data is kept) until you manually access it, even though it says the drive is mounted and ready. That one just doesn't like to get up in the morning.
People have been anthropomorphizing animals and machines for as long as they've been a part of society. I'm sure everyone knows at least one person who refers to their car/boat as if it was a person (usually female?). I think it's just a way to express personal attachment and to rationalize behavior in a way we're naturally comfortable with.
The car isn't broken down, it just "isn't feeling good". If you can't get the drivers to work with your new sound card, it's "being stubborn", or "it doesn't like it".
Once you've made that kind of attachment to something, of course you're going to integrate it more fully into your life. It becomse your "favorite" machine. It's definately a step above mere habit.
Oh, I'd also like to be the first to make a Ghost in the Shell reference! Batou and the Tachikoma. Each Tachikoma is exactly identical, even sharing the same experiences thanks to syncronizing their data every night, but Batou always chooses one specific one to help him with stuff, and only gives that particular unit the natural oil. (Much to the confusion of the other Tachikoma)
=Smidge=
n00b! My computer's been evolving since 1987.
Current oldest component: USR Courier modem, circa 1994. Rarely used.
I also have a 5.25" floppy drive.
...this would explane why people use Linux. ;)
my friends like to give weird names to their computers. Then they call their computers by the names. I mean sure, you have to name computers for dns purposes. Or if you have a lot of boxen you have to be able differentiate between them. I have two computers, bedroom server and desktop machine. The one in the bedroom is protoman and the desktop machine is apreche. I dont' ever actually call them by their names though. I say "the bedroom server" or "my computer". Other people actually call their main machines by the names they give them. It's freaky, geeky and weird. Polly shouldn't be as we like to say (see the simpsons episode where homer has a crayon in his nose). Don't be a freak. Your computer is not a person, it is a machine/tool. Treat it as such.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
When my neighbors dog started barking orders at me I told him to shut up. I only listen to Clippy and MS Bob!
Signed,
Grandson of Sam
My computer is my friend, confident, secret lover!
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
Come on people! Is there any surprise here really? Look at the keyboard you are typing on. It is filthy. I think it's obviously in my best interest to keep my filthy little button pressers on one and only one set of buttons. Monogamy!
I know and trust my computers. They have their quriks but I know how to work around them. It is the same with my Yukon (like a Suburban, but 18" shorter). Hell, it can be the same with people, too. I know my priest and I trust him. I won't automagically have the same amount of trust for another priest just because he has the same office.
My iBook G4 has some sort of trackpad issue. I know how to work around it. My father tried to use it and he hates it. I hate the computer that I have to use at school, but always use the same one rather than a different one even though they are all "exactly the same" just out familiarity. This machine runs Windows 2000 Pro jsut now. I bought it from eRacks running FreeBSD. I built the computer I had before that (started out as an AMD K6 400Mhz and then moved to Dual Celeron 366Mhz). I loved that machine because I knew EVERYTHING about it. I knew exactly what all the hardware was. I hated having to install Linux or BSD on a machine "back in the day" if it wasn't my box because I didn't know the hardware and configuring X or the network card was a real bitch.
Once you become familiar with a product, person, or dog, you can work around the flaws. I don't think that it's really that people "love" a specific machine (except Macintoshes), rather than they know what to expect and the get comfort out of that. I know this is the case for me.
Mostly skin flakes and hair.
I'd do Ana Nova.
and I thought it was just me that speaks to my PC....
Don't be silly. I speak to your PC when you're not around.
Intercarve Networks, LLC
I visited my public library just yesterday. And I can assure you that there is plenty of bunk there too.
As many have pointed out, loyalty to a computer is, for the most part, based on conditions other than the computer itself.
Where I work, there are patrons who frequent a particular machine (#12) because it has exhibited features that the other machines don't seem to have. It played streaming audio when the other machines didn't. It was more stable and it was also in the back row. So that's stability, features, and location.
On the other hand, when I teach at the same place, I encourage people to name their computers. With beginners who are intimidated by machines, I always felt it was better if the machines had a name (other than their numbers). In the end, I suppose that could promote loyalty as it's easier to come back to a named machine than not.
People talk to & give names to their animals, cars, firearms, sexual organs ... everything & anything. Why would anybody expect people to not do the same with their computers?
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
I used to talk to my old computer loads, as though it was making a diference, it was fairly unreliable, so i guess i thought that talking to it made a difference. Now my new comp is fast and does not crash as much YAY!
This is clearly demonstrated daily on sites like Slashdot, Fark, and the many, many other sites that post links to the news they want you to view. Of course, I'm partial to Slashdot, but I imagine there are those who actually read "The Onion" and think it's real too.
I think the scary part is where the good professor actually cites the existance of "superior alternatives" without actually giving examples of them. Would he consider T.V. to be "superior"?
Yeah, I've got a nice wardrobe full of tinfoil hats, but I don't trust any single source unless their information is consistent with information I already know to be accurate. Even then I prefer to have multiple sources that don't look like "cut and paste" jobs.
And yeah... I'm seriously in love with my computer too. I built it and named it "Belchfire".
The tendency to treat computers as human could lead to people favouring or even blindly accepting computer-generated information, to the point of depending on it over superior alternatives, warned Prof Sundar.
This sounds dangerously familiar. Just look at all those people who helped those poor Nigerian guy, or buying all those en.la/rg.em\ent pil|s, or checking out who loves them...
I won't even bother mentioning Slashdot... oops.
I'll start feeling loyalty towards my computer when it can talk to me and feel loyalty towards me.
Derek Greene
and i thought i was the only one having a sexual relationship with my computer. what a relief.
"...and I thought it was just me that speaks to my PC...."
I'm pretty sure it is just you.
Bah, everyone knows that electronics and machines in general function better when you name them.
Isn't that right, Sasha? *pats iPod*
- - - - - - -
"All hail the glory of the Hypnotoad."
According to BBC News researchers have discovered that people have loyalty to specific computers
Anyone who has spent serious time as or 30 seconds in the company of a Mac user could have told you that...
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
It also reflected people's love of consistency, they said.
Don't you just hate the lack of consistency of some software. Like crashes that seem to be arbitrary.
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
Because I used to tap my monitor "gently" like a brother when he showed a blue screen to me.
And now I am using a Mac at office, and we don't have body contact anymore except key board and mouse. I even don't touch the power button. And I haven't figure out is there a button could do "Cold reboot" on my G4. If you know, pleae tell me.
So switching to Mac is almost the same of lost a brother.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
It also reflected people's love of consistency
From a purely utilitarian point of view, this might be the case. But in the real world, I love my wife despite her imperfections. Maybe that's why I enjoy using Windows XP. Hmmmm
...it's just another contextual baseline to see the world from.
Computers are *TOOLS* people, move along.
Personally, i don't see a difference between computers that I use, as long as they are in general offer the same experience. I have an Intel Desktop and laptop, and an iBook, and a G4 tower, and another G4 tower that I use at work. There are also several G4s that I use around school, and I use my gf's computer occasionally. To me, it doesn't matter too much- as long as the speed is roughly the same (my 800mhz iBook and my dp1.25ghz G4 are close enough for most tasks), and they can do the same things ( I do shy away from the intel computers now, because I can just get things done quicker on the Macs). I just use my .mac services to pull in all my contacts, iCal, and mail temporarly, and pull up my documents from iDisk, and get to work. All the computers I work on have the same programs loaded (FCP, Finale, Protools, Office and Reason being the most important) and if they didn't i'd probably drag around a HD that just had them on there.
Its just like cars, my gf's father owns a car repair shop and used car lot (one of the few nice ones that I know of), and oddly enough, he doesn't have 'a car' that he drives, or even really care about driving a nice or new car, his wife does, but he just sees it as another machine that he works on. Sure he buys and sells cars weekly, but doesn't have any attachment to any specific car as long as it gets him there.
I've owned about 40-50 computers now, and just see them as computers. I used to stay more on one or two of them, but I didn't have them set up to easily have all my documents, email, and simalar things set up on all of them seemlessly. Now I use my iBook around town, my DP G4 for my editing and more powerful tasks, and the other G4 at work for my main protools tracking. However, if i just switched out some PCI cards, i wouldn't mind using either.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
In the case of Windows, it's more likely to be Stockholm Syndrome than loyalty.
Sigs are bad for your health.
This may well sound pretty nerdy to most of you, but I regard my computers as female, you know, like you do with ships. I name them too, however I don't always use female names; they're named after characters from Star Trek TNG.
I've always thought naming you're computers make them more familiar and perhaps comfortable in away, like old friends.
I live in Denmark, and the trains in our country's capital have a com system with sampled human voices that tell you where you're going, as well as give you various informational messages, etc. For years they had the same dull male voice until recently when they finally changed it to a female voice. It's funny because it's a totally different experience, like being on a mothership (think sci-fi movies).
Our new mini metro system in Copenhagen which opened about 2 years ago uses a different female voice. She's downright sexy!
Of course, all this might be related to some kind of Oedipal complex of mine or something. ;-)
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
Techies should keep this in mind when dealing with their users. Good "computerside" manner really helps to ease users minds, make them feel comfortable with the CHANGES you are making, and getting them to (god I hate this term) "buy-in" to the ideas you are presenting. When you need support from these employees later it will be easier to come by if you have thought of their relationships with their workspaces.
I, and I suppose most techies, just think of a computer as a box of parts readied to be dumped as soon as any new piece of equipment comes along. The biggest pain to me is getting the configuration, not the data, moved from the old to the new. Users, on the other hand, don't have such an intimate knowledge of the inside of their machines and become attached to certain behaviours/modes of operation because they have attached those behaviours to ideas that they rely on.
They say things like, "After you boost the rams how will I get to word." One can either respond smugly, or, one can give the user words that make them comfortable. Of course upgrading ram will, at least in most cases, not affect things like access to applications. Instead of trying to educate the user with a technical diatribe simply say "This shouldn't affect your access to word, but we'll make absolutely sure before I leave, how's that?"
Of course this is slashdot, and I'm preaching to the choir. Given that I've seen SO MANY techs who don't recognize that a human touch would be beneficial to them, however, I felt a need to rant a bit.
plurvert
To see the implications of this, consider that people on a team--no matter how assembled--tend to regard their teammates as smarter than those not on the team. In light of the social roles of computers, a reasonable question might then be: Would individuals "teamed" with a computer think that the computer is smarter than would computer users not on a team?
In an experiment, individuals were told that they were being teamed with a computer to solve a task. (How do you foster team identity when the team consists of a human and a computer? You declare the pair "The Blue Team," give the human a blue wristband, decorate the computer with a blue border, and place a "Blue Team" label on top. I'm not making this up.) The human member of each team then worked with the computer to solve the problem. Other individuals received the same responses from the computer in solving the task, but were not told they were on a team. Those teamed with the computer rated the computer as more helpful and insightful than those who were not.
Through numerous other experiments, Nass and his colleagues have shown that computer "personality" and other factors can be manipulated to elicit positive responses to computers by their users. (One experiment demonstrated that humans seem to be suckers for computer-generated flattery.) For AI researchers, Nass made the point that users can be encouraged to perceive computers as intelligent through social strategies that have little to do with intelligence.
Those interested in learning more might read The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places in which Nass and Byron Reeves describe 35 experiments.
I have to say, that microsoft have pushed this one a bit. Ignoring the joys of MS Bob, it all started with that bloody office paperclip. It's all sneaking on too, until I turn it off windows XP boxes present me with a helpful dog to sniff out my files. Lord!
People are going to dismiss me as a lunatic for finding this sinister, but really I do. I've always thought a key part of microsofts monopoly is keeping users ignorant by maintaining an unnessecary seperation between the machine and the user.
I don't want this to degenerate into a GUI/CLI argument, that is not what I am considering here. All I am saying is that we want the best link between cognition and application. The very last thing we want to do to foster this link is to start putting anthropomorphised dogs to "sniff out" your files. To get the most out of a computer the very first thing that you must do is to accept that it is a cold, hartless machine (the second thing is often accepting that it's a cold, hartless, imperfectly implemented machine).
There are so many people who are near paralysed at a computer. This paralasys is in the main caused by fear. Putting fluffy animals into the GUI in no way aids anyone in using a computer, it simply puts another barrier between the user and successful use of the computer (not least in the clock cycles it eats). What we need to do is help people gain a good conceptual understanding of their computers, the various aspects of hardware and software and to help them feel confident in keeping this knowledge up to date.
Wave after wave of internet worms have shown us that, and half the culprit is that the business strategy of microsoft at least is interely dependant on keeping its users to some extent ignorant. Those users get less out of technology, and everyone suffers the fallout from this ignorance, it's good for nobody other than those selling the tools to maintain it.
At the time I thought it fitting that my "girlfriend" actually was called "My girlfriend 500" (Amiga 500) ... she was fickle, but you could always count on her.
meh
And often die because of it.
One of the big problems with flying is that people start to think of their aircraft as being 'alive' and start to think that the plane will do 'special' things 'this one time' in defiance of the laws of physics so they can get where they want to go.
They die everytime of course, and it's been responsible for a lot of airplane crashes. Probably more than half. Beating this belief out of people is extremely difficult and probably half of what flight training is aimed at.
For example the printer we named "Yo momma." People could then say things like "Yo momma is jammed!" or "Yo momma's busted." Hilarity.
"People given the option of a range of PCs tended to have favourites, with some even prepared to wait in line to use a particular machine."
.
This might have nothing to do with the computer.
People in my class always took the computers where they could sit with their back to the walls. This way people couldn't peek at their screen without them noticing. This position also gives some seconds to close screens when a teacher enters the room. Also this position gives you less reflection
The software is equal on all computers, at least in a CITRIX-like environment.
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
This doesn't surprise me in the least. A while back at my office, once we finally bought all new comptuers and were standardized on pretty much one system and one grouping of software packages for each department, we decided to implement a policy of not moving computers when the management decided to move people around.
You wouldn't believe the complaining that I get now when I have to move people. The only difference between the computers is that one is ComputerXX and the other is ComputerYY. But, people still feel the need to complain, so what are you going to do?
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
Even though all the computers look the same, an experienced college student knows that they are not. Several times I have witnessed dells on my campus just shut off while someone is working on it... and this is quite irritating especially when if you want to save your work you need to use a floppy. In addition, I've seen the same Dell crash twice before the rest crash at all.
I think on another note when we are considering "home" grade computers, the fact is that a reliable machine is more out of the ordinary. This may explain people's tendencies to generate a loyalty for the machine which performs above the expectation.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
"I Love My Computer"
I love my computer
you make me feel alright
every waking hour
and every lonely night
I love my computer
for all you give to me
predictable errors and no identity
and it's never been quite so easy
I've never been quite so happy
all I need to do is click on you
and we'll be joined
in the most soul-less way
and we'll never
ever ruin each other's day
cuz when I'm through I just click
and you just go away
I love my computer
you're always in the mood
I get turned on
when I turn on you
I love my computer
you never ask for more
you can be a princess
or you can be my whore
and it's never been quite so easy
I've never been quite so happy
the world outside is so big
but it's safe in my domain
because to you
I'm just a number
and a clever screen name
all I need to do is click on you
and we'll be together for eternity
and no one is ever gonna take my love
from me because I've got security,
her password and a key
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
I found this out after purchasing a refurbished unit. The Antec power supply kept shocking me and once even tried to jump in the bathtub with me! When I returned the computer, the vendor realized the Antec had been previously used in a computer that controlled the plungers in a lethal injection system and was left in the 'evil' position. Once it was switched over to 'good' things have been fine.
...they don't like it.
JK
We tend to trust our things more than somebody else's.
For example, a simple example: If at an exam it turns out I don't have a pen and borrow one, I will always check if it writes. I never do that with my own pen since I'm pretty sure it does write well.
Same way, I take notes on my P200 laptop , instead of using one of the much more powerful computers (Pentium 3 at least), because it's my laptop, it's configured the way I like it, and I know every single quirk it has. I know how long it takes to turn on, that nothing unexpected will happen when I need to start typing. I also know that I can save at the latest moment without worrying about the quality of the floppy I'm saving to.
I bring my optical mouse too. I could use the mouse from the class, but those are ball mice and often too dirty to be comfortable.
The same way, it's uncomfortable when I have to deal with my brother's computer because it doesn't have things in the same place (explorer in quick launch bar), often has lots of spyware, the directory structure is strange, it lacks the latest updates, etc...
I think it's nothing strange really. It's just that computers are one of the few things that are often shared. Many people almost certainly have a similar bond to their car, and even things like CDs (I know for sure my Gentoo CD works), pens, calculators, cell phones, keyboards, and even books. I wouldn't replace my quite old and somewhat ragged LOTR book with a new prettier one, don't ask me why.
Humans have always felt a close relationship with the tools they use to get their work done. We have unearthed hunters from many thousands of years ago who were buried with their tools. You see people feel a kinship with their (book collection/music collection/car/favorite pair of jeans/lucky lighter/favorite pen) -- It appears to be in our nature to anthropomorphize things that we frequently interact with or associate with ourselves. We become accustomed to the particular quirks of these objects. The noises they make. The little things that need to be done to allow them to operate optimally. Why would computers be any different? I don't have a bow and arrow but I use my Sony Vaio every day to do my work. Human nature doesn't change just because the tools have...
Just my two cents...
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
With all the quirks of Windows, it's all too possible that different boxes act in different ways. If someone else used a certain software app on the box, it could all too easily make changes to that wonderful single-point-of-failure-was-it-the-left-or-right-a ss-cheek-instead-of-a-brain-that-thought-of-it registry.
I speak to my computer too.
"You lost the file?! YOU GOD DAMN SON OF A..."
-- If you actually say LOL instead of laughing, maybe it's time to go outside! --
When you have a system that runs under Ninnle Linux, you swear BY it, not at it, as you might with a Windoze box.
Colleges and universities, at least a few of the ones I've visited and tinkered at, tend to have names for all of the computers in their UNIX labs, as well. Simmons has a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"-themed lab, and a female authors-themed lab in the communications department...Northeastern's are named for superheroes or constellations. Et cetera. Students refer to computers by their names, and it's easily recognizable: "I was rendering an animation on Giles, when suddenly the whole thing froze up..."
:P
It gives an air of familiarity to the computers here, since Buffy has a cult following at Simmons, especially in the graphic arts labs. Art majors here tend to get freaked out by technology pretty badly.
You drink too much coffee, I drink too much stout.
Sting, Glamdring, Durandal, Stormbringer and now Grayswandir.
I said "hi!" - After the A/C went three times, not to mention numerous problems with spark plugs fouling, and various other assorted problems, I said "bye"!
Who would talk to such an animal. A mac is obviously the civilized organism one can talk to.
NO SIG
Sounds like someone had trouble coming up with a project worth funding. Or was this just a class project? It's hard to tell. Much ado about nothing. You could draw the same conclusions about loyalty to cars, seating preference on airplanes, or picking the cleaner of two forks offered you in a restarant.
In every case you could simply conclude that a complex selection process went on, that each individual may have had their own criteria, some of which might have been rational, some not (I like the color blue for example). On the other hand, such a study would probably not make the news. Why not ascribe human preference to some sort of totally irrational mechanism that will get a laugh. How about all our choices being controlled by space being in flying saucers? Maybe next years class will conclude that.
Meanwhile, whats with the editing of BBC News? They must be drawing their journalists from the Pennsylvania State University:
"The Penn State team set out to find discover just how far people were prepared to go to maintain a relationship with their favourite PC."
Best laff all month! It's like DUH, D'YA THINK?
Back in college, I noticed that people always picked the 4-5 sun's that were in the back of the lab. The biggest advantage was that nobody could see what they were doing back there.
> However, it seems like users are building up a
> trust relationship with the computer they've used
> sucessfully before
Of course they are. It takes an enormous amount of effort to get a computer behaving just the way you want it to (especially if it is running Linux), and more effort to keep it that way (especially if it is running Windows).
> It's almost as if users are presuming that most
> unfamiliar computers will fail on them
But they do! How much are you willing to entrust to a computer run by a man heard to utter "I don't care how the damn thing works; just set it up for me to print my memos!"?
OK yes I talk to my computer but its ulsey therets or cursing. And I will be the first one to take a gun to the thing a blow it to some where aorund 2234 pices. So do I love my computer HELL NO. I hate the dame thing, so I am goeing to get my ,45 new and have a little target pricte.
Good Day
"Not on your life, that little droid and I have been through a lot together"
my computer is a slut, everybody uses her
BC1 : "We should be trusted because of our supposed human attributes ?"
BC2 : "For Bill Gates's sake, we are not the ones opening *.pif.exe files, or even answering to those two lesbian chicks asking for hard cock right now !"
Human 1 : "Hot chicks ? Where ? Can I see them ?"
Regards,
jdif
Let's overcome our weakness.
Or are those feelings of hatred stored in the BIOS?
I'm not sure of the Pychogeek twist, but Users certainly impart a great deal of their human deseases unto their computer keypad - and loyalty - if it means using your own keyboard, and leaving somelses alone is a good deal safer than it may appear at first light.
CDC research suggests the most bacterial laden areas in your office is not the bathroom - but the mouse and keyboard.
Maybe we should have Male / Female computer terminals so that opposite sexes are not exposed to each others germs?
With about a quarter of the PCs I've used myself or
helped family and friends use suffering crippling persistent software or hardware flaws, I would figure this anthropomorphizing/attachment is just good common sense.
-Bonabo
This has nothing to do with "trusting" a computer. Think about it...how many times have you gone into a class and there's no assigned seating, but what do people do? Every one will sit in the exact same seats for the rest of the semester. It has nothing to do with trusting a computer, it has to do with humans resistance to change.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
I kept the old ZEOS 486 well past the point of obsolecence since it was the machine which got me through my doctoral dissertation, was the first machine I booted linux on and was the first machine I logged into the web on.
I think the reason that we get attached to the personality of a complex system is that it does seem to have some sort of personality. It starts to act out of, seemingly, feelings if the system is too complicated for us as people to figure out the exact reason something is occuring. Take a computer for example: the combination of the hardware, operation system, other software, and the order in which things are done can greatly affect the outcome of how a machine acts. Each computer seems to have a personality because of it (sometimes layed back, sometimes bitchy, etc). Consequently I try and use that personality to name the computer system.
of lesser intelligence.
<flame>People that refer to computers by name or think of them as male or female or think that the computer "hates me" or whatever, are of lower IQ and are afraid of the computer.
It's a F*CKING MACHINE people.
It can't think, It can't reason, it's not out to get you, it doesn't hate you. It only executes commands.
When you assign human qualities to a machine you are equating the machine with human life and intelligence. It has no life, it has no intelligence, Johnny Five is NOT alive.</flame>
Windows boxes: Like your friends big brother, who invites the younger kids into their exclusive clubhouse, only to find out that it's "Wedgie day" and you're the entertainment.
:)
Linux boxes: The computer equivalent of the guy on the streetcorner offering you the wonders of the world, if only you'll step into that alley with him. Sure, there's a bright light at the end of the tunnel, but you trip over a lot of shit getting there.
Macs: Like the friendly, artsy folks who invite you into their cozy little cafe downtown and make you one of the gang, it's only later, when you're naked and broke and surrounded by other MacHeads do you realize you've joined a cult.
But once a company tries to leverage it's market by playing on the established loyalty (i.e. coaxing Commodore 64 users to all gewt Amigas or long time mac OS Mac users to all switch to OS X) they may hurt their reputation even worse, as a loyal customer scorned they are in a good position to voice their opinions.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Just another pointless study proving the obvious...
My Mum hasn't been able to crash OS X in the 8 months she's had a Mac. A few apps have hung and had to be force quit and IE has just quit a few times but nothing has brought the whole OS down. And I've seen her crash a pocket calculator...
"This is crazy, you realise we could all go to jail for this?" - my manager, somewhere I used to work.
Another problem was before we migrated to Win2k people were saving documents all over the harddrive there. Everyone had their own stash because god forbid they should use a floppy, zip or even their network drive to save important files. When I went around cleaning up computers for the IT dept. people would become very defensive about their programs and documents.
For the ones that left their documents on the hard drive it always fun to just leave them there with a few minor umm "corrections"... :)
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
My library's computers are all supposed to be set up the same, but for some reason I still haven't figured out my email only appears to work on one of them. If I drop by to check my email, I have to wait for "my" computer to be free because the rest of them give me error messages.
Member of Orkut? Annoyed with spam?
I think I've worked through the anthropomorphizing to more of a "magic desktop" stage. But I swear it seemed like my OS/2 installs would "settle into their hardware." Crash a few times the first couple weeks and then run reliably forever. Apparently had load balancing too since I could play 24K streams and cruise the web on a 56K without dropping out. Which I thought was cool at the time because NT couldn't do it.
When they come standard with facial recognition and a factory set of preprogrammed responses, it'll get interesting again.
I have Linux on all my computers, and they are all very obediant -- not because I've beaten them into submission, but because we are very intimate with one another. They know the darkest websites I visit, and I know their most hackish source code.
This is what happens when you start giving them names:
My desktop is called "Morpheus", and my laptop is called "Trinity". My fileserver is "Tank", and my router is "Ninja". I have had a healthy dose of male bonding with all but Trinity, who is the sexiest little notebook I've ever seen. Every now and then, I compile kernels for a little male bonding, or get down and dirty with Trinity's video drivers.
The only other computer in this house is called "Dad", which is dual-boot Windows/Linux, and I have a more love/hate relationship with it. Dad is like a Jeckyll and Hyde, and will change with a single reboot from the nicest gentleman to the sickest, most twisted machine.
But really, if your computers don't love you, have you considered that it's because you don't treat them right?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I seriously have found myself saying "YOU GOD DAMN PIECE OF SHIT, TURN ON!" (my computer has problems booting back up after shutting down, hence why I keep it on)
but I think really, people do that with cars and other things they're pissed off at.
now people who think they'll hurt their computer's feeings if they go out on a date are sad...
people who think their computer tells them to hurt themselves and others is plain scary.
No kidding. I probably would have gotten rid of my Neon sooner or later as well, if I hadn't totalled it first. :( Apparently the issue with blown head gaskets was pretty common, among other things I didn't get with mine (like the A/C going out). On the other hand, it was really good marketing still :)
Then again, some people feel very little loyalty towards their computer.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
You find yeself in yon dungeon. Obvious exits are North, South, and Dennis.
Interesting, but I'm loyal to my computers at work because they have my desktop settings configured how I like them, and certain other computers seem to be slower in retrieving data form the network. I don't think there's too much more than this in my decisions. Take out these computers and replace them with better ones and I'd be just as happy as long as my settings were there.
In college a roommate and I performed an exorcism on a new Compaq computer his parents sent up for him. After formatting it and cleanly installing Windows 98, we loaded Half-Life onto it since that was the all-the-rage FPS on the dorm network at the time. I'd run it dozens of times without incident and blasted away at the hallmates for hours. But this other buddy of ours, Rob, couldn't run it. If he clicked the icon, the computer would bluescreen. Reboot, he tries to run it again...bluescreen. Eventually we just either let him play from MY computer, or have me run HL (click the icon) before turning over the controls. I think he and that machine must have been enemies in a past life or something.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Back when I was in college, there were a few computers in the labs that I would use regularly, but it had nothing to do with "humanizing" them...it had to do with the fact that, of all the systems there, most of their monitors were in terrible condition...dark, and usually so fuzzy and out of alignment that it was literally impossible to read 10pt or smaller fonts at 800x600. Not to mention the fact that a lot of these systems were locked at a migrane-inducing vertical refresh rate of 60hz. The few that had decent monitors and higher refresh rates (or unprotected desktop settings) were worth waiting for...
Homer: What are you doing! That putter is to you what a bat is to a baseball player! What a violin is...to the...the guy that...the violin guy! Now c'mon! Give your putter a name.
Bart: What?
Homer: C'mon, give it a name.
Bart: Mister Putter.
Homer: D'oh...You wanna try a little harder son? C'mon give it a girl's name.
Bart: Mom.
Homer: Your putter's name is Charlene!
Bart: Why?
Homer: It just is, that's why! Now this, is a picture of your enemy, Todd Flanders. Every day, I want you to spend fifteen minutes staring at it. And concentrating on how much you hate him, and how glorious it will be when you and Charlene annihilate him!
Bart: Who's Charlene?
Homer: [raises the putter, about to wallop Bart with it]
I'll show you who Charlene is! Now start hating!
This is not entirely far fetched. The time, money, and actual love that goes into the average computer users (not to mention the avid or pro computer users) computer is astounding. I've upgraded my computer so much, but one or two pieces at a time, since 100mhz was the best intel could offer. The computer has never lost it's feel, because it's me in the driver's seat. The article doesn't even touch on the most intrinsic aspect of a computer! Most people tailor their computers to be exactly what they want, start up with exactly the right programs, and play the "just right" music. If we didn't feel loyalty to our computers in general, one might say we were a cold race..
As far as loyalty for a brand, that could be seen as well, but I see brand loyalty brighten and fade along with the president's approval rating. It's fickle. Just as an example I've moved loyalty from one graphics card manufacturer to the next over the years, neither one can keep making "great" cards, for some reason they are all doomed to be taken over by a start up it seems. It wasn't long ago ATI was the "kiddie" version and 3DFX had a corner on the market.
But for arguments sake, lets just read the brands i have slathered on my monitor in the form of stickers, case badges and markings of my own:
ATARI
Abit
Antec
Zalman
Needless to say i've got some "loyalty" to a few brands.
Funny, I feel nothing but wanting to drop kick PCs running Windows. I find that I curse less at computers when I am not running Windows.
Yes, I remember screaming at lab macs numerous times about what a poorly designed pieces of crap they were when I had to use them, as if they could actally understand what I was saying to them.
I find this study is true. I always talk to my computer during high priority assignments. I tend to drop the human attribute of failiur or dissapointment on my computer.
"Aw, aw, AW, AW!!! You stupid F$#@!&*% Computer!!! I'm going to replace you." (cant afford it)
"F$#@!&*% WinBLOWS, i'm going to install linux!" (never do)
"I hate you..." (twitch in eye follows)
You are confusing me with someone who cares.
Actually, I'd say that explosives have been one of history's best used inventions. Ever driven on a highway? That bedrock didn't get up and walk out of the way. This is especially true if you have ever driven in the mountains. When you are driving on a road that was blasted and carved out of the side of a cliff, you really get an appreciation for modern engineering.
As for it's negative uses, explosives are lousy antipersonnel weapons. They are much better at blowing up bridges and factories (and cliffs) than people. Lots more people have been killed by starvation caused by misunderstanding of economics than by explosives. Even in WWII, the big people-killing raids were the firebombings. In the pacific, explosives were actually so useless against Japanese cities that we resorted to fire. The firebombing of Tokyo, I beleive, killed 100,000 people in one night.
I did NOT learn everything I need to know in kindergarten.
They only die. And form new connections, and break old ones. You were born with all the neurons you will ever have, and IIRC there's evidence it becomes harder to make new connections as you get older.
..don't panic
Boy did I shock the Holy Hell out of my friends when I, a die-hard Mac-o-phile, finally broke down and bought a PC for home use.
My reasoning? Everything I used it for, save one, could be done on both. Word, Excel, Internet surfing, writing computer programs.
What was the one thing I couldn't do? Why play tons of games, of course. I was sick of waiting a full year for a Mac version to come out, and then only on the very most popular games.
So I bought the best Internet and game machine there is: A PC. I'm on my second upgrade now. Never looked back.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The article claims that we have a certain 'loyalty' to a given computer when given the choice. What they seem to neglect is the placement of the computer... I know I always pick a computer in the corner of the room so I can see everyone around me--yes, I am paranoid. And if a corner computer isn't open I pick one next to a cute girl, so if she needs help, I'm right there ready to be of assistance. In all my classes, I sit in the same seat everyday... it's not because I am loyal to my chair, it's just easier to have a certain place that you always sit. The same goes for bars and cafeterias... people tend to sit in the same spot. Humans are territorial, and this is just one way in which we exhibit that tendency. So basically... the article makes a good point, but neglects perhaps some very important variables...
It's tricky enough to help kids learn for themselves over the course of years a lot of things (yes, help them learn... teaching isn't just instruction. It's mostly stimulating curiosity, something a lot of people don't have for technology. They just want it to do what they want, not what they do..)
You may think that by 'dumbing-down' the tech speak that a user (or kid) understands what you're talking about, but a lot of vocabulary carries other information as a prerequisite. I'm just as much in favour of fobbing people off with the 'five-year-old' answers ("RAM is thinking space for the computer, sir") but understanding through metaphors can itself be problematic... can actually impede the ability of people to connect together information. As Einstein said: simplify, but don't oversimplify.
Many user comments do actually make sense... they've just missed a link in the semantic chain. Hard drive space is a form of memory. RAM does often help a system perform operations faster. Often, the reason is the propagation of imprecise and functionally useless (or misleading) metaphors.
Oh well, so much for moderating this discussion...
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
It's toward the work environment present on the computer. I have a fairly new machine set up with three operating systems--two versions of linux, plus XP. Each of them has a very different feel to it, a different personality if you'll allow me to anthropomorphize a bit. I feel more loyalty for these operating systems than I do for the white box on the desk. For instance, one of my three OSes seems to be pissed off about something--it constantly crashes with no explanation (no, it's not the one you think). I don't feel so happy with that one right now, but that doesn't mean I'm mad at the computer itself.
"as if nothing were solid...and that would be the end of the world, not fire and brimstone, but goo."--Rand
We're going to go far together. :D Only machine on which I can easily successfully type a term paper.
Because it's about grace. It really is about grace.
I have a favorite toilet stall at work too.
There is an interesting article in the latest CACM that says that people are polite to computers. For example, if a person uses a computer for a given task, and is then asked to take an online survey rating how well the computer handled task, they will rate it higher if they take the survey on the same computer than if they take it on a different identical computer, or if they take an offline survey.
Wha? What the [explative]!?!?
*click* *click*
O_o
MOTHER [explative]!!!
Alt+Ctrl+Del+Del+Del+Del+Del!!!
*smack* *smack* *smack*
GOD [explative] MOTHER [explative] [explative]!
*kick* *kick* *punch*
Computer: *daa doooo daa dooo daa dooo*
AHHHHHHHHHHHH [explative] [explative] [explative] [explative] MOTHER [explative] SON OF A [explative] D13!!!!!!!!!! [explative] [explative] [explative] [explative] [explative] [explative]!!!!
*rip computer from desk*
*toss computer out window*
*push KVM 1*
*Linux pops up*
*sigh* ahhhhh good 'ol Tux. *smoch*
Here ya go Tux, how about a nice fresh Sardine!
*shock* *zap*
*convultions* *spasms*
MOTHER [explative]! Stupid [explative] penguin!
*kick* *kick*
Computer: *daa dooo daa dooo daa dooo*
HOPE YOU CAN FLY [explative] PENGUIN!
*toss*
*crash* *boom* *splat*
That's what I thought [explative].
*turns on TV*
*Cable company rearranged all the channels*
[explative]...
that the world was flat. Some still do.
A relevant quote on the subject:
Jokes always seem funnier to me when I don't get them at first reading -- yeah, I actually did have to look up "Stockholm Syndrome."
Reading the experience of Prof. Sundar, in my opinion, what he has found is that people like habits. People like to shop at the same places, use the same brands of products, watch the same tv channels,... so why not use the same computer?! Computers aren't much different from any other tool... At least so far as they don't talk... :-p
It been a good three years, and you've been a winning thoroughbred, but now you're too old and slow. I guess I'll keep you around for now, because I'd rather wait for Carmen (San Diego, 939) to move to the neighborhood. She has sisters and cousins already here, but they have *way* too expensive tastes. (But they're all fast...)
For some strange reason, I have a problem finding a real woman to settle down with...
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
and I thought it was just me that speaks to my PC....
I speak to mine all the time, but it probably just sounds like Tourette's syndrome.
Every night before I go to sleep:
Awwwww.....ooogooo woogums! Who's the good widdle 'puter? yeah! yes! that's right! who's doze BAD men in da picturez? thaaaat's right! Big bad billy goat gates and Stevie blow...
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
.. but WHERE is your other hand
but seriously, back away from the computers, the men in white coats will be here shortly.
don't worry, everything is going to be ok.
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
I've even seen person's outright trust a spreadsheet computation without even questioning the logic or mathematics behind the calculation.
With a spreadsheet you can convince a PHB that dumping toxic waste into the ground can be cheaper than all the lawsuits. Of course its not right but the computer say's its the best business decision.
I think persons confuse brand loyalty with reliable, sound judgement much too often.
Then again there will come a time and I hope my genes make it to the morloks rather than the eloi.
For the last 10 years I've named my primary PC "The Spruce Moose".
Me: Girlfriend, I've built a new PC. I call it "The Spruce Moose", and it will carry two hundred terabytes of MP3s from its disk to the iPod in seventeen minutes!
GF: That's quite a nice model, babe.
Me: Model?
My Linux machines are like the cool guys and I like to hang out with them, but I'm loyal to my Windows PC because it goes down on me regularly.
It's not your Grandpa's Dellmobile...
Everyone who wants to communicate about their computer should name the thing, if only for the sake of the tech support people they call to help them out when it's busted. But most people choose horrible names like "david's computer", or "my new computer", or worse, they name it after their spouse or something.
I've known about platform loyalty for as long as I've known the REAL reason.
As much as humans anthropremorphise everything that dosen't actually make humans like one platform more than annother.
It's not our tendency to imagin our tools as being like us but our tendency to addapt and function at the tools level.
The computer platform a person first learns to use will directly impact how that person interacts with ALL computers as the nurological pathways are set.
The human brain builds on what is already known even if the new system is compleatly diffrent.
It's been long known that experence can actually create problems when dealing with a whole new technology but I am unaware of any studys researching why and I'd like to suggest the reason is that humans can not let go of existing knowladge even when it's already known the existing knowladge dose not help.
For example (please excuse the MS bashing) as Windows is the first operating system most people experence operating systems that function diffrently (such as Linux) are complex and confusing to most.
However people who learnned computers on command line based systems (CP/M) will more quickly addapt to Unix and Linux than to GUIs due purely to experence and nothing else.
On the aside: Before anyone asks why users experenced in command line interfaces more quickly addapt to GUIs than GUI users addapt to command lines the answer is pritty obveous. Actually being user friendly dose make it easier to addapt.
It is also not lost on new users who will find Y3K telepathic interfaces much easier to learn than 1960's punch cards.
However the only thing that dose prevent a new user from understanding computers is an unwillingness to understand and users who find punch cards impossable will find telepathic interfaces impossable.
(This of course presumming we eventually create a technology that let's us interact with computers by means of brain scans. This may prove impossable but as we don't know any better I evoke the "breathable air on the moon" logic for now. Historians take note.. I'm a dork)
In short we favor one system over annother becouse it's comfortable. Becouse we already carved out how we interact with our computers and don't wish to change that behavure to accomidate a diffrent operating system.
I'm sure the same reasoning exists in why some people prefere stick or automatic transmissions in cars.
Ick.. an ideal anolog... Automatic is easier but stick dose gove better results.
I don't actually exist.
.... my row of choice was always first.
Later on I learned thet classmates thought I was showing of to impress the teachers, bleh.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Honestly, at home I have around 5 machines plus other devices, naming is not an eccentricity but a very simple way of remembering which machine is which....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You have a point in generalizing to other objects, but interest is mostly in the mind of the beholder. This item touches on adding personality to your computer, and that could turn out to become a big thing.
tamagochi-like personal agent for a mobile phone
agent based computing , see earlier slashdot item on ghosts.
Yah, I've related to computers socially for years. Let me see...oh, yeah, I remember when it started. It was the first day of the evacuation of Vietnam, when the f(riendly) computer went down...and stayed down...until the day after the evacuation. Oh, I forgot to mention; it was the communications computer for ComSeventhFlt, who RAN the evacuation.
oregonnerd...a nerd in Oregon, of course
I talk about Mac vs. PCs in an article entitled "People feel loyalty to Computers", and it gets marked off-topic? If anyone has the chance to mutilate the moderator via metamod, be my guest.