Computers can be tool or crutch

What used to be considered an inanimate object can change a person’s behavioral patterns. Products are in development that provide physical human-computer interaction.

Will these technological advancements create an overreliance on computers? Will ethical standards be developed to govern such interactions?

Here are some authors already exploring such ideas.

Check out these books and access these Web sites from any of the eight branches of the Springfield-Greene County Library to learn more about interactions between humans and computers.

Books @ The Library

Captology is the study of the ability of computers to change people’s attitudes or behaviors.

“Persuasive Technology,” written by B. J. Fogg, coined the term “microsuasion” for interactive computing products having supplementary elements of persuasion built into the user experience, such as the shareware nagscreens reminding users to pay for their usage.

But then there’s also “macrosuasion,” a label for computing products created solely to persuade, such as Baby Think It Over, a teen pregnancy prevention doll or “infant simulator.”

Troubling questions can arise about who will wield this power of digital influence and to what end.

“Machine Beauty” by David Gelernter dares to think big thoughts and dream big dreams.

How about your own personal Web site on which you’ll conduct all personal business and receive inclusive Internet information filtered through your personal wants and needs? The book criticizes current technology for “inelegant” (i.e., inefficient, unnecessary, or virtually useless) features.

Since it’s economically advantageous for manufacturers to control the internal functions of their devices with computers rather than older, mechanical methods, computers and their often befuddling mannerisms have insinuated themselves into every product and service of our society.

“The Inmates Are Running the Asylum,” written by Alan Cooper, maintains that we need nothing less than a revolution to get technology to work in the same way that average people think.

Pertinent Web Sites

www.technewsworld.com/story/36703.html

The Nouse, a contraction of Nose as Mouse, allows users to push a cursor along their computer screens by using their noses.

Right or left click? Just blink the corresponding eye twice. While this sounds useful for persons with disabilities, one technology analyst sputters: “high silliness factor.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technolo gy/3639679.stm

A British survey found that, on average, people use four computer passwords, although one person claimed to remember 40! Those who use several passwords often write them down and hide them in a desk or in a document on their computer.

www.usabilitynews.com/news/article1944.asp.

How many visitors to your Web site understand the term “RESET”? How many of them deliberately look for and press the RESET button so as to discard all their careful clicking and typing? Show me a person who has pressed RESET and I’ll show you a person who is bemused, disconcerted or annoyed because his or her form has suddenly gone blank. The person meant to press SEND and clicked on RESET by mistake.

Mike DePue is the business librarian at Library Center.

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