COLUMN ONE : Getting Lost in Cyberspace : Feeling guilty that your child has no computer? Fretting that your job--or your future--depends on mastering a mystical machine? Watch out. You may be falling into the technology trap.
Science Finds, Industry Applies, and Man Conforms -- Motto, Chicago’s 1933 International Exposition on Progress
Bruce Webster hates new technology. The electronic gadgets at the Irvine psychologist’s home are forever flashing triple zeros. He refuses to use a cellular phone because it would end his favorite pastime of listening to rock ‘n’ roll while driving to work.
But Webster is feeling pressure to change. He now uses a pager so his patients can reach him instantly. And to put himself in touch with the times, he is considering the unthinkable: computerizing his practice.
Call it the technology trap.
As America rushes headlong into the Computer Age, more people are finding themselves responding to the allure of a powerful new master. Encouraged by aggressive advertising and eager to keep up with the cyberspace Joneses, millions are racing out to buy personal computers, often with the idea that they will help their job prospects or bolster their children’s education.
For some, computers can do just that. But, at least for now, technology’s calls may be a siren song that can lure the unprepared into unwise investments of time and money and lots of unnecessary Angst.
The uproar over a comparatively minor flaw discovered in Intel’s most advanced computer chip, the Pentium, shows how little most people know about the complexity and quality problems of PCs--and how little manufacturers know about the needs and desires of non-technical consumers.
Many such users find that PCs demand long hours of tedious self-instruction for few tangible rewards. For them, their machines can become little more than costly toys. More than half of the 10 best-selling software packages are games.
And computers simply aren’t the special entree to the future that many people expect. “You don’t need to know computers for the age of computers,” says Greg E. Blonder, who is starting a laboratory at AT&T; to study the interaction of people and technology. “You have to be adaptable; you have to learn how to learn.”
The flood of computer advertisements this holiday season--the first ever in which consumers are buying as many PCs as corporations--portrays the computer as the miracle machine. “Did you ever have to get up in the middle of the night and go to the bank?” Microsoft asks in one ad that shows a computer glowing in the dark.
Another Microsoft ad has two little girls asking their father to forgo “Goldilocks” as their bedtime story and instead use the computer to explain Sartre and existentialism.
And Intel is running a TV commercial that shows a family riding its computer through various adventures as if it were a modern magic carpet.
“They are making parents feel guilty for not having a computer for their children,” says Robert Corpuz, PC analyst at Dataquest Inc., a San Jose research firm. “It’s a strong emotional tug.”
“If they (children) don’t learn how to use computers by the fourth grade, they will be lost in the technology,” said Ed Anoskey, a Boeing manager, as he charged a $1,666 Packard Bell multimedia computer for his 10-year-old granddaughter at a Seattle store. “There is so much to absorb.”
People concerned about their employment prospects may also be attracted by the promise of the PC. Some say a new national divide is developing between technological haves and have-nots, and one had best be on the right side of it to be assured of prosperity and job security.
“If you are not computer-literate, do not expect anyone in your organization to respect you,” scolds management guru Peter Drucker in a recent article in Forbes. “My 5-year-old granddaughter would have no respect for me if I told her, ‘You know, I’m afraid of the telephone.’ She wouldn’t believe me.”
“Times change,” says Drucker, “and we must change with them.”
Bill Machrone, a columnist for PC Magazine, suggests that “eschewing personal computers in this day and age is like saying ‘no thanks’ to refrigeration.”
But if we step off the technology treadmill for a moment and reconsider, the real benefits may not be so obvious.
There is no question that many businesses and professionals gain important advantages from computers. And temporary agencies say applicants who know their way around a keyboard are more employable--just as workers skilled in using Wang word processors were in great demand a decade ago.
But has the PC become a basic appliance ranking in importance with the telephone?
Well, no . . . or at least not yet.
Instead, by appearing to offer more than it can deliver, experts say, the computer has contributed to a growing sense of fear and anxiety over new technology. It is still light-years away from the phone when it comes to ease of use.
The Pentium flaw, which can cause errors in certain kinds of esoteric calculations, and a multitude of less-publicized problems show that PCs are far from the technological maturity of most common electronics products. Almost half of those surveyed recently by PC Magazine had had problems with their machines.
Just as early buyers of the automobile had to be rich, have some familiarity with mechanics and be willing to contend with shortages of good roads and gas stations, computer use requires a great investment of money, time and patience. People who buy PCs without any technical know-how or any specific sense of what to use the machines for often find themselves thumbing through mind-numbing manuals and spending hours on the phone trying to get through to a help line.
A recent study conducted by Larry Rosen, professor of psychology at Cal State Dominguez Hills, found that only half of the American university students surveyed were comfortable with computers. More than one-tenth had physical reactions such as heart palpitations and sweaty palms when required to learn a new technology. “People can’t keep up with the pace of change,” says Rosen, who calls the phenomenon “technophobia.”
In a survey of about 400 users, market researcher Coleman Assn. of Teaneck, N.J., found that most had sworn at their computers, close to half sometimes felt like throwing something at the screen and 7% had struck their machine with an object.
Much of that frustration comes from inflated expectations about what computers can deliver. A Seattle physician recently spent $3,500 on a computer expecting it to quickly balance his checkbook and help him with diagnoses. But he hasn’t had time for the laborious process of entering every check and ATM withdrawal, so he still lives with his checkbook unbalanced. After six months, the main product of his efforts is a letter to a friend that includes a tiny picture of his baby daughter printed under the return address.
In certain respects, computers have always been a technology in search of a problem. Even in the business world, companies have often treated computer systems as a brute means of replacing workers or measuring productivity, rather than developing applications to meet specific needs.
New York publishers, for example, once thought they could increase their editors’ productivity if they forced them to edit all their manuscripts by computer, says Scott Larson, a Seattle anthropologist and consultant who has helped large companies respond to backlashes from the inappropriate use of technology. But editors invariably printed out the long manuscripts and edited them by hand.
People who promote technology “always pretend to know how best to do things,” says Larson. “But technology is just a tool and you should question it.”
Many corporations have learned from the past and are taking a more skeptical approach to the introduction of new technology. Some companies are even putting non-technical people in charge of their computer operations to guard against implementing technology for its own sake.
Patagonia, the Ventura-based sports clothing maker, recently installed Ed Schmults, a business manager with little computer knowledge, as head of information systems. “The owners of the company are reluctant to embrace technology unless it’s very well thought out,” he says.
Patagonia has avoided using voice-mail systems that force customers to punch strings of numbers before reaching a real person. The company recently decided against marketing its products through on-line services because early experiences showed they weren’t an effective sales channel for them.
On a smaller scale, Philip Bereano, professor of technology and society at the University of Washington, still reads his reports and letters into a Dictaphone for his secretary to transcribe. “In some ways it’s absurd, but I’m efficient at it,” he says. “I can’t sit still in front of a computer.
“People who are into computers won’t admit the fact that some people don’t need them,” Bereano says.
But it is increasingly common for people to feel compelled to buy computers without a clear idea of what they will be used for.
“I have a lot of friends who have computers and they don’t know what to do with them,” says Jack Rosenberg, 76, of Pacific Palisades. He helped John Von Neuman, the inventor of the modern computer, design his first machine and is a skeptic about the computer’s home applications.
“Their grandkids come in and play video games. At most they write an occasional letter,” he says. “They are buying machines that cost $1,500 to $2,000 because they think they will eventually need one. They buy it to keep up with their neighbors.”
Those who have no specific plans for their machines and find themselves combing through home computer magazines may be disappointed. In its December issue, Home PC carried an article with holiday ideas for family projects. Among them: Use a computer to make a “Welcome, Santa” banner to hang over the fireplace.
Leading the consumer stampede are parents who feel their children need expensive multimedia computers to excel in school. And schools themselves often feel compelled to have rooms lined with computer screens to show parents that they are up on the latest technology. But numerous studies have produced little concrete evidence that children who learn on computers do better than those who stick to books.
Of course, with children, there’s another variable. Anoskey, the Boeing engineer, says he is buying a computer to help his granddaughter with her homework. But when asked what she will use the machine for, Megan quickly responds: “Games.”
Certainly, there are good reasons for children to learn new skills while they are young. “There is a period of life when we are organizationally sanctioned to learn,” says Robert Kraut, professor of social psychology and human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University. “There is less time later on.”
But the notion that learning to use a computer gives children a significant head start in life is debatable.
“The computer is just another rich educational toy,” says Sally Narodick, chief executive officer of Edmark, an educational software company. She compares computers to other educational toys like clay, building blocks and books that each play a role in learning.
Indeed, the whole notion of computer literacy as a fundamental skill like reading or math may be inaccurate. Successive generations of students have sought to become “computer literate” with a few college courses in programming. Only a tiny minority ever used those skills. Most saw the programs they learned quickly become obsolete as new generations of computers used new kinds of software.
Microsoft, Apple and others are constantly changing their software to make it easier to use. The person who masters Microsoft’s Windows, for example, must learn a new set of skills next spring when Microsoft releases a new version that it says will be far more accessible for lay people.
The student who uses a computer for the first time at age 20 will not suffer a disadvantage against a child of comparable educational background who has used a computer all his life, says Donald Norman, a research fellow at Apple Computer Co. and author of “Things That Make Us Smart,” a skeptical look at new technology.
He is part of a research group at Apple working on software that will make computer use more intuitive for new users. “Teaching kids how to use computers is the wrong thing to teach,” says Norman. “You end up teaching things we (at Apple) are trying to make obsolete.”
By the end of the century, experts say, most computers will be embedded in appliances the way electric motors are in washing machines.
“At some point if you know your work it will be OK,” says Judith Ramey, director of a laboratory at the University of Washington that helps corporations develop user-friendly products. “You won’t need to know technology.”
Even in highly computerized workplace environments today, analytic skills are generally valued more than any mechanical knowledge of computers.
“You have to know what computers can give you,” says Dennis Strigel, chief executive officer at Bell Atlantic Mobile, a cellular phone company based in New Jersey. But Strigel notes that even in customer support jobs at the company, the key requirement is a college degree and the versatility to handle problems from billing to technical support.
Until computers make the transition to being a simple appliance with applications that are obviously helpful and easy to use, there is liable to be a lot of hand-wringing.
“I don’t want to do it, I don’t have time for it,” says Webster, the psychiatrist. But he is resigned to his high-tech fate. “I’m going to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Computer Age.”
