Psych 101

Maxed out on faxes? Had e-nough of e-mail? Like to give the # key a good #ing?

You are not alone. Only about 10% of us truly love technology, say psychologist Michelle M. Weil and psychology professor Larry D. Rosen, authors of “TechnoStress,” a guide to “Coping with Technology @work @home @play” (John Wiley & Sons).

The rest of us either accept computers and cell phones and pagers and VCRs as sort of necessary evils (50%-60%) or want nothing to do with this newfangled stuff (30%-40%). Among the latter are members of the Lead Pencil Club--who hang up on voice mail--and the Neo-Luddites, who Just Say No to it all.

“Technology may do wonders for us,” write Weill and Rosen, “but it is also doing something to us.” As machines replace humans, we feel frustrated, angry, hopelessly inept.

“People and technology are like oil and water,” say the authors. If computers are so easy to use, they ask, why do technical support lines get more than 100,000 calls each month? Then there’s technobabble--RAM, ROM, bit, byte--not to mention the bastardization of perfectly good words such as “mouse,” “boot” and “virus.”

For those who feel adrift in a world of smaller and better, faster and smarter machines, Weil and Rosen offer consolation: “There is more technology out there than you will ever be able to learn or use . . . just because you use a tool, you do not need to have the newest or quickest.”

Their suggestions for surviving the technological tsunami include handwriting a note to a friend and pressing O for operator even if you don’t have a rotary phone.