Re: Computer phobia

[John Gear <catalyst -at- PACIFIER -dot- COM>]

As technical communicators, I suggest we not leap to label anyone who
doesn't accept computers happily as "phobic" (which implies fear).
Misdiagnosing a problem is the surest way to keep from solving it.

If we structure our messages about using computers in response to the idea
that our audience consists of either comfortable users (or even
propeller-heads) or phobes we will miss the large (and growing) number of
competent computer users who simply don't *like* working at a computer.

There are a number of personality types who get no satisfaction at all from
dealing with inantimate things.  They may be perfectly comfortable doing
so--but find it unsatisfying.  They may not like what it does to the
workplace etc.

I recommend Clifford Stoll's "Silicon Snake Oil" (new this year, can't
recall the publisher) to everyone but especially to anyone who thinks of
everyone who avoids computers as phobes.  Stoll is the astronomer who spent
more than a year dangling bait on the internet to track back the hackers
penetrating US military computing systems and selling the info to the Soviet
Union (see his previous book, "The Cuckoo's Egg").  Clearly Stoll cannot be
labelled a phobe.  But his book is a very thoughtful meditation on the use
of computers and their limits.
John Gear (catalyst -at- pacifier -dot- com)

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