ARPAVAX:Onyx:chastain (08/04/82)
I received 54 responses, many of them with explanations at-
tached. First, the raw results. The quotation attached to
each question is the most interesting response which I rec-
ceived for that question.
YES NO
[1] Have you ever pulled an all-nighter without telling the 38 16
the person(s) you live with?
I thought those were regular work hours.
-Dave Borman
ihnss!ihps3!stolaf!borman
[2] Have you ever randomly poked around other people's or 49 5
system files, with no particular goal, for longer than
30 minutes?
Yes, it's such fun!
Bill George
houxi!hocda!wjg
[3] Have you ever skipped a homework assignment or other 40 14
dead line in favor of nonessential computer activities
(playing games, reading news, twiddling unimportant
things)?
Yes, that's what I'm doing now!
Bill George
houxi!hocda!wjg
[4] Have you ever experienced neurotic symptoms traceable 37 17
to your computer activities (undue frustration, anger,
etc.)?
Yes, but they disappear when I leave the office.
anton
decvax!hcr!anton
[5] Have you ever broken a date or other romantic engage- 17 37
ment in favor of nonessential computer activities?
No. Organisation beats the hell out of preemptive
scheduling. However, I do tend to focus social life
at weekends rather than weekdays to avoid such con-
flict.
anton
decvax!hcr!anton
[6] Have you ever fainted from lack of food or sleep in ANY 9 45
computer activity?
No. Though I should have.
Andy Tannenbaum
floyd!trb
[7] Have you ever spent substantial amounts of time doing 44 10
pointless things (watching the load average or the
queues, waiting for the process numbers to cycle
through 0, etc.)?
You know you're spending too much time at the compu-
ter when you come in, sit down, log in, do an ls,
chdir to all your directories, do ls's there, do a
who, and a free, read your mail (5 days old) do ano-
ther ls, and a who, and then say to yourself "What
the heck am I doing???!!!!!"
Dave Borman
ihnss!ihps3!stolaf!borman
[8] Have you ever made yourself tremendously unhappy 16 38
through your computer activities?
Now for some global quotes:
Another test of addiction is what happens to a person when the
computers are removed! Does he go through withdrawal? If so, I
think then you have found an addict.
--Michael S. Maiten <...!ucbvax!menlo70!sytek!msm>
I think "nurd" is a better term than "hacker", even with the
negative connotations because we (the comp. sci. community) tend
to be social, and cultural, infants. This means that we usally
are the death of a party, especially if there are non-tech types
present.
Bill George
Unfair to say computing crippled my social life, it was crippled
anyway. At least now I can relate to other computer phreaks.
(At least, having lived with both computer and non-computer peo-
ple I found that non-computer people found me much harder to live
with than computer people...and some of *them* near drove me cra-
zy!)
I don't think that any of the traits which enable me to answer
some of these questions affirmatively were developed in me after
I discovered computers...I had them long before. Computer Sci-
ence is a terrific field because it is full of people like
this...perhaps it is not that computers make us this way, but be-
cause people who naturally have these characteristics are at-
tracted to it.
Laura Creighton
decvax!utzoo!laura
Your survey doesn't include a time element. Reformed hackers
might still be judged guilty by these standards.
decvax!utzoo!utcsrgv!burt
Now for some of my observations. I think most of the addicts out
there are no more unbalanced or addicted than musicians or ath-
letes or graduate students. I've noticed in myself the 'linger-
ing login'; that once I'm logged in, I tend to stay well past the
point that I'm accomplishing anything useful; however, once I've
torn myself away from the terminal, I feel no pains. (TV viewers
do something similar: "anything is better than turning it off!").
This survey is late because, among other reasons, I spent two
weeks in Dallas during July. Around the eighth day, I started
suffering psychological withdrawal, and couldn't concetrate on my
(completely non-computer) work; my thoughts kept wandering back
to UNIX. On the tenth day, I blew 45 minutes staring in the win-
dow of a closed TRS Computer Store, watching a TRS-80 Model III
go through its demo program six times. In summary, that's the
last time I travel without a portable terminal!
My definition of a computer addict is: "a person who knowingly
damages their health or happiness through computer activities, or
who refuses to cease these activities even when he or she consid-
ers their cost unacceptable."
In closing, I attempted to ensure that no one was quoted without
his or her permission. I apologize in advance for violating
anyone's privacy; custom apologies are also available on request.
Michael Chastain
ucbvax!onyx:chastain (UUCP)
Onyx.chastain@Berkeley (ARPA)
P.S. Note: the address above supersedes all previous ones.