Saturday, June 28, 2008
Technophobia
“First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII - and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we’ve realized it’s a brochure.”
Douglas Adams
Fielding added new electronic books to one of the online libraries, and I spent a while yesterday skimming through them. The content of Technophobia: The Psychological Impact of Information Technology stuck with me the most. Technophobia is a fear of technology (distinct from social convictions opposed to the use of technology) that affects 1/3 of the industrialized world.
What was interesting to me was the inclusion of sex/gender theories with research showing women had a higher rate of technophobia. Brosnan looked at the difference in male and female levels of technophobia through psychological concepts of gender versus biological bases. The idea is that the physical state of being female is not necessarily what makes a woman more anxious about using technology, but rather the acceptance of the societal beliefs about femininity. When the computer itself was not masculinized by the social group, girls and boys were balanced in their technology use. In situations where the computer was masculinized, women with higher levels of masculinity used computers more. The same is not true for men—a lower level of masculinity in men was linked to a higher interest in computers.
Overall the book is interesting, I just wish I could download it to my iLiad so that I wasn’t tied to the computer. Reading an entire book on the computer screen is not going to happen, that’s why I bought the portable reader.
