OddFile: Yelling at Your Computer

Image by Don Fulano via Flickr

Why do you yell at and beat up your computer? Because it can’t talk back.

At least, that’s according to: “The determinants and expression of computer-related anger“:

Studies of everyday computer-related anger are rare. To shed more light upon this anecdotally common phenomenon, retrospective self-report questionnaires were used to elicit closed-ended and open-ended responses from 126 members of the general public and students in northern England who supplied psychological and behavioral data connected with a single recently experienced occurrence of computer-related anger. Inter alia, findings show verbal and physical aggression towards equipment to be common in bouts of computer anger, and physical aggression to be associated with greater negative affect prior to incidents but not with stress-related factors. However, stress-related factors and negative affect predicted variance in anger intensity over and above cognitive appraisal variables. It is concluded that computer anger is likely to be a source of stress for a small but significant number of people, that computers’ non-sentience leads to physical disinhibition, but that evidence that the expression of computer anger in social environments is inhibited by fear of people’s negative evaluations is weak. Further conclusions include the observations that anger is likely to be more intense when theoretically relevant cognitive appraisals are made, a person is in an irritable mood and when physiological arousal is elevated because of ongoing events.

Someone tell this kid.

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