Slashdot Mirror
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...."
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.
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!)
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.
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
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.
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"
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
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!
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.
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
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
This is very true. In fact, you will upset students if you disrupt the seating after the first couple of weeks. In philosophy of religion some of us decided to sit in other peoples seats about halfway through the course in an attempt to modify the dynamics of discussion. People were clearly uncomfortable, so uncomfortable in fact, that some of the group gave up after a couple of days. Perhaps they were uncomfortable not being in their own seats, who knows.
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.
Those habits have been very usefull outside the lab and at other jobs but mostly when dealing with my parents. They have several computers and sometimes I have to troubleshoot over the phone. As they sometimes forget they switched locations of a coutple of computers since last I was there, it is VERY handy that I've gotten them to refer to computers by name (in this case we're using a Norse God Pantheon naming scheme, not Rocky).
Little Brother, watching the watchers
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.
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."
In the case of Windows, it's more likely to be Stockholm Syndrome than loyalty.
Sigs are bad for your health.
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.
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.
i have caught myself on 2 occasions saying goodnight to my computer. that was scary.
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.
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.
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."
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
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!
Then again, some people feel very little loyalty towards their computer.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
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.
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.
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
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...
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."
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.
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.
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.