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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!
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.
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.
Not reliability...
They go where they've already got their P0rn/Games stashed.
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.
"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"
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.
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.
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!
How many people name their computers?
Anyone in any way connecting to a network... I mean, you don't really have a choice, right?
What is the name of your computer?
Currently sitting at Teleute, my primary machine (which slowly sucks away my life, thus the name). Across the room I have Lucien the file-server, and downstairs I have Virago (my SO's machine) and Bimbo (my masq'ing gateway).
I don't feel loyalty to my computers, and I don't personify them. However, I feel far more comfertable using my computers than someone elses. The only reason I can think is that I have my computers set up exactly the way I want them, and have been fine tuning hardware and software layout over the life of the device. When I use someone else's computer, I have to get used to there layout.
Let's make a difference
I think there's a large amount of unconscious thought & actions going on with computer use, which may end up being a large part of what's happening here. Not the least of which is WHERE a machine is. I like corners, so I used to sit in the corner and use the 3 machines around there, but thats just me. Other people liked edges.
Add to that the subtle signals we pick up when using a machine. Usually there will be little idiosyncrasies in a group situation, where a dozen computers might all sound a little different. whine differently. have their volume set just a little different compared to others, and the ones people are used to, or perhaps even NOTICE this about will be the ones they're drawn to.
I think the unconscious thought thing applies a great deal to Macs, PCs, Linux boxes. The first time I touched a Linux machine which was supposed to be stable, I locked it up. Why? I don't know. I can only guess that its user (a cousin) had his definition of "stable" defined by the routine of uses he went through every time he booted it, and never came across the particular odd combo I did. I found my Windows machine at the time stable as well (Win 98) but it'd guarantee to lockup within a few hours of use by someone who isn't me. non consciously, I think I'd learned to avoid the things to do that would crash it.
Bet it's similar with OSX boxes. put a windows or linux user who's never touched one before in front of it and it'll bluescreen, kernel panic or beachball soon after use, until they also built up the internal map of what not to do.
Bad example. HAL seemed to like Dave until he decided to deactivate HAL. Just imagine how your human love would react if she heard you were going to "deactivate" her... somehow I suspect she'd be a little less polite than saying "I'm sorry Dave, but I can't allow you to do that."
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
Yeah man, don't listen to these wankers, they have no compassion. I'm glad you stuck with her even though she was going through some rough times.
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
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.
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.
There are other factors too. A clean keyboard, mouse, and monitor will lead me to pick one machine over another. The only thing worse than skicky keys is wondering how they got sticky in the first place.
Also chairs: Most colleges seem to buy "computer chairs" made out of stamped metal, cardboard, and good wishes. They have wheels that will break befor they roll, height adjustments that are stuck in the lowest position, and back adjustments that break so as to leave pieces of metal poking you in the back. I'd rather have one well-built wooden chair than a succession of cheap-ass "computer chairs", no matter how they are padded. And I'd pick my computer based on the chair as well.
Also tables: They aren't all level, and that really sucks. Nothing worse than seasickeness as the monitor sways too and fro as you lean over to use the mouse. You might be able to snag another chair to put in front of your favorite keyboard, but good luck switching tables. (yeah, yeah, just switch keyboards -- but the lab assistants look at you funny when you do that.)
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
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.
Anyone with more than one PC names their computer. How else do you keep networked machines separated in your head?
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."
The article also seems to imply that attachment to a specific machine is irrational, but given how complex and unreliable computers are, it seems very sensible to me. If you know that you can do what you want on a particular machine, why introduce an extra unknown variable by switching to a different one?
But they're all supposed to be equal...
In the classroom where I do most of my teaching, typically only 4 or 5 of the six Windows machines are working at any given time. The other ones either have a virus/worm infection, or something else is wrong with them.
What's really irrational is to expect people to stay on the hardware and software upgrade treadmills. If you've got something that works, you should be able to stick with it. My father ran his law practice on a TRS-80 for ca. 15 years. It Just Worked.
BTW, I'm posting this from my FreeBSD box, Rintintin. He's the replacement for Lassie. I felt kind of bad about switching, but Lassie is in one of the classrooms at school now, hopefully turning young minds on to open source :-) --- I think she's OK with that.
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Which is exactly why good testers are rare, and developers are sometimes the worst testers. Testers need to find bugs instead of intuitively avoiding them.
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.
"Is this because OO was such a hog of system resources and so slow you couldn't be bothered with it" - Not really. It seems okay to me.
"or is it because of the superior functionality of M$ Word?"
In a way. The User Interface of MS Word is so much better than OpenOffice. Word just looks nice, and is easy to use. Since I was working on something which required quite a bit of thinking, I couldn't be bothered to have to think about the program I was using too. I mights as well be using VI with the User Interface of OpenOffice.
- Jax
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.
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.