eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) (06/28/90)
This is part of why Unix(tm) was developed. And why Multics isn't nearly as successful. Subtract features, don't add them. I've heard other cute quotes from Turing and other people in the past who have comments about how computers "should" be used. e. nobuo miya
egnr76@castle.ed.ac.uk (A Kashko) (06/28/90)
This phenomenon also occurs outside the computer realm. For example claiming some territory by personalising the space. These behaviours can be explained in sociological terms. I got the impression Mr. Polvino would have prefered users who lack creativity and initiative and just did exactly what they were told. I agree there is soemtimes an embarrassment of riches in the software available, but hoarding is not confined to computer users. My complaint is not with people personalising their workspace, but with people who use coding as a substitute for thaught, and those employers who encourage counterproductive programming by introducing programmes to measure productivity by counting keystrokes for each user. A Kashko
martin@netcom.com (Martin Hall) (07/06/90)
Joseph Polvino writes: > In every work environment, there are a handful of people who hoard > programs. In the Macintosh realm, desktop accessories (DAs) are the > most traded. Do you really need 20 init files? Do you really need that > memory-resident program that pops up with the ASCII table when you can > print one up and stick it next to your monitor? Do you REALLY need your > Macintosh to say, "Nice night for a walk" whenever you eject a disk? I understand, and for the most part agree with the above. But it does not seem to speak to the comment, "Too Much Computer is Bad". Though it does seem to say quite a bit about wasting resources. > The most blatently counterproductive software product I've seen on the > market is a program which displays a message on the screen such as "Out > to lunch" or "At meeting - back at 2:00" to name a few. These programs > are probably loads of fun to have, and the time customizing the > parameters for it wastes more time and money than simply writing a > post-it and slapping it on your screen! I will have to agree here....I have even caught myself wanting to type a ToDo list into the computer when a handwritten one on the back of an envelope might suffice. What we should look at it is, why do we act this way. A good question to discuss might be the why are compters so seductive that people behave in this manner... Well, I think that it is both good and bad. Another example is e-mail. If you have e-mail within a company, it often times becomes to easy to send a message rather than speak to someone in person. I have found that people will be a lot more confrontative of others over e-mail (sometimes by accident) and not realize the bad feelings that are being produced at the other end. This is why people use :-), :-( ,etc. to connote sarcasm and sadness. The technology is promoting a type of isolationism, that if allowed to continue unchecked, can cause ordinary relationships to deteriorate that otherwise would not. I am very much a proponent of people carefully understanding why they use technology. I think it is potentially dangerous when companies buy a computer "because they can do their work better", with no understanding of why they are doing it. I thnink people should have a reasonable understanding of why they are using some piece of technology. If not society will end up turning into a group of mindless techno-droids. Martin L.W. Hall
lumsdon@dtoa1.dt.navy.mil (Esther Lumsdon) (07/07/90)
Earlier in the group, Martin Hall commented in reference to email: > The technology is promoting a type of isolationism, that if allowed to > continue unchecked, can cause ordinary relationships to deteriorate that > otherwise would not. I disagree particularly with the last sentence of this paragraph. I find it _no_ more difficult to be civil/courteous/polite via e-mail than face to face. I feel more _connected_ via e-mail, not more isolated. Granted, most of my communications take place outside my company. I do not think that e-mail technology is promoting a type of isolationism. I believe that many people will become confrontative faster in e-mail than they will in person as a result of trends in our society that are unrelated to e-mail technology. Does anyone read the syndicated columnist Miss Manners? She pokes a bit of fun at her own stodgy manners (imho), and gives courtesy a positive image, and promotes manners. Could a column with that sort of content have been popular in the 1950s? I don't think so. I believe there's been a decline in polite behavior since I was a child, and that it's a symptom of a decline in willingness to take responsibility for oneself, and a decline in the acceptance of delayed gratification. (Note: I am not a social scientist. I am a computer scientist). I see confrontational, flaming, and/or abusive e-mail as symptoms of a deeper problem, one that has no easy solution. I believe that people will be no more polite when using technology to communicate with others (e-mail, telephone) than they will be in person. I don't lay the blame for such behavior on technology, but on people. In my experience, I've found that the vast majority of my e-mail is positive, on MILNET and local bbs's. I don't believe that e-mail technology by itself coaxes people into confrontative communication faster than those people would become confrontative face-to-face. Esther Lumsdon
a1495@mindlink.UUCP (Terry Madsen) (07/07/90)
> Well, I think that it is both good and bad. Another example is e-mail. > If you have e-mail within a company, it often times becomes to easy to > send a message rather than speak to someone in person. I have found One advantage of e-mail is that it enables you to send non-urgent messages and inquiries without interrupting the recipient. Programming for example requires about 10-15 minutes immersion time to get "into" whatever you are doing; if someone askes you for the time they have cost 15 min of working time (30 sec to respond plus immersion time). E-mail eliminates this. The solution to E-mail wars is to put contentious issues at a high enough urgency level as to require face to face contact. E-mail is no different from the old fashioned office memo in this respect, just fancier and easier to use (and misuse). For a more detailed treatment of this, take a look at _Peopleware_ by Lister and DeMarco --- well worth the price. Terry Madsen
reggie@dinsdale.paradyne.com (George W. Leach) (07/09/90)
Esther Lumsdon responded to a note from Martin Hall with some disagreement about the value of electronic mail: > I find it _no_ more difficult to be civil/courteous/polite via e-mail > than face to face. I feel more _connected_ via e-mail, not more isolated. ... > I do not think that e-mail technology is promoting a type of isolationism. I don't think the author chose the appropriate term to describe the condition. E-mail and computerized conferencing have enable the handicapped and the rural teacher to become "better connected". > I believe that many people will become confrontative faster in e-mail > than they will in person as a result of trends in our society that are > unrelated to e-mail technology. No, here there have actually been studies to prove you wrong. It has been shown that certain individuals will open up more in an electronic media than in a formal face-to-face meeting situation. Have you ever formed a picture in your mind of what a certain person must look like based upon their e-mail and usenet postings? Have you then met that person only to find that in real life they don't look or act anything like what you imagined them to? Furthermore, it has been shown in controled studies that people do tend to forget that there is a human being on the receiving end of your communications. Check out the following publications: Starr Roxanne Hiltz, Murray Turoff, K. Johnson and C. Aronovitch, "Equality, Dominance and Group Decision Making: Results of a Controlled Experiment on Face to Face Vs. Computer Mediated Discussions", Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Computer Communication Atlanta, USA, 27-30 October 1980. pages 343-348 Starr Roxanne Hiltz, "Experiments and Experiences with Computerized Conferencing Emerging Office Systems" in 'The Proceedings of the Stanford University International Symposium on Office Automation', Robert M. Landau, James H. Bair, Jean H. Siegman, Editors, Ablex Publishing, 1980. pages 187-204. Starr Roxanne Hiltz, "The Human Element in Computerized Conferencing Systems" Computer Networks, V2, 1978. pages 421-428. Starr Roxanne Hiltz, "Computer Conferencing: Assessing the Social Impact of a New Communications Medium", Technological Forecasting and Social Change, V10, 1977. pages 225-238 Dr Hiltz's background is Sociology and Psychology. George W. Leach
martin@netcom.uucp (Martin Hall) (07/10/90)
Esther Lumsdon responds to my previous article with the comment: > I find it _no_ more difficult to be civil/courteous/polite via e-mail > than face to face. I feel more _connected_ via e-mail, not more isolated. Maybe I was not clear. I was refering to a type of emotional isolationism. E-mail is a lot like a FAX machine, you can contact someone while they are out. But unlike a phone or being in person, you cannot get any emotional input from the person. There have been studies (no references) that say that 80-90% of what is communicated is is done by body language and inflections in the voice. E-mail has none of this. > I do not think that e-mail technology is promoting a type of isolationism. > I believe that many people will become confrontative faster in e-mail > than they will in person as a result of trends in our society that are > unrelated to e-mail technology. While I do not believe that e-mail technology causes the isolationism, I feel that it definitely exacerbates it. People can hide behind the computer.....they are dealing with an inanimate object, not a person. I have had people say some pretty mean things over e-mail, and then talk to me later as if nothing happened. People disconnect the technology as a way to communicate with another person. The delayed response also has something to with this, since you do not have immediate feedback, you are disconnected emotionally to what you are writing. Martin Hall
zwicky@itstd.sri.com (Elizabeth Zwicky) (07/11/90)
Martin Hall writes: > E-mail is a lot like a FAX machine, you can contact someone while they > are out. But unlike a phone or being in person, you cannot get any > emotional input from the person. There have been studies (no references) > that say that 80-90% of what is communicated is is done by body language > and inflections in the voice. E-mail has none of this. I disagree; I spent some time just after I moved to California without a phone, and did all my communication with friends and family via e-mail. Certainly I got a lot of emotional input that way. (In fact, for much of the year most of my contact with my father is via e-mail, and we are hardly un-emotional.) Statistics about how much is conveyed via intonation, pauses, and body language are misleading. Spoken speech and written speech rely on different systems of cues to indicate things. Some large percentage of the information conveyed by intonation and pauses is equivalent to the information provided by punctuation and paragraphing in written speech. Another large chunk of it goes as cues for interactivity ("you can interrupt me now" "I am still listening to you" "I am trying to interrupt you now") Spoken speech tends to be more telegraphic and error-prone than written; people leave things out, or make mistakes that they have time to edit out in writing. Body language and intonation compensate for this, as well. Certainly they don't contain 80-90% of the meaning - imagine trying to converse with some when you get only the intonation, pauses, and body language. > I have had people say some pretty mean things over e-mail, and then > talk to me later as if nothing happened. This may simply be a matter of clashing communication styles; one person's idea of mean may be another person's idea of having an interesting intellectual argument. (I have seen this happen in face-to-face conversations as well, with people telling me "So-and-so thinks I'm stupid and can't make a contribution" when I was able to verify that So-and-so merely thought they were temporarily incorrect. "That's a stupid idea" would be a crushing insult to me from my father, who doesn't say things like that. From one of the guys I work with, it wouldn't even cause me a moment of doubt - it's his way of saying "I disagree with you". He would completely astounded if I took it as a personal criticism.) Deborah Tannenbaum's book "That's not what I meant" talks at length about how communications mismatches like that occur face-to-face. Elizabeth Zwicky
martin@netcom.uucp (Martin Hall) (07/12/90)
In response to Elizabeth Zwicky: > I spent some time just after I moved to California without a phone, and > did all my communication with friends and family via e-mail. Certainly > I got a lot of emotional input that way. (In fact, for much of the year > most of my contact with my father is via e-mail, and we are hardly un- > emotional.) I am not saying that it is impossible to communicate emotional messages in an e-mail. My original message mentioned the use of :-) and :-( for denoting sarcasm and sadness. I would suggest that with family and friends that you have set up a type of underlying communication that you can communicate with them. Your family especially is already going to be clued in to your idiosynchracies. A co-worker or someone out on USENET likely may not be simarly clued in. They are less likely to be clued in. Further, I think that one is less likely to inadvertantly flame someone that they are emotionally connected to... > Another large chunk of it goes as cues for interactivity ("you > can interrupt me now" "I am still listening to you" "I am trying to > interrupt you now") Spoken speech tends to be more telegraphic and > error-prone than written; people leave things out, or make mistakes > that they have time to edit out in writing. These mistakes and errors are communicating something. If you ask me to do something and I say 'No'. Over e-mail this may appear final, especially if you do not know me. But on the phone or in person, you might hear me go, "Hmmmmm, well......, no". You won't likely take this as final and may decide to make a modified offer. >... one person's idea of mean may be another person's idea of having an >interesting intellectual argument. (I have seen this happen in face-to-face > conversations as well, with people telling me "So-and-so thinks I'm stupid > and can't make a contribution" when I was able to verify that So-and-so > merely thought they were temporarily incorrect. I think what I was trying to say is being lost. In essence, what I am saying is that e-mail has a tendency to promote miscommunication. There are number of ways in which we compensate for it. My original argument about emotional isolationism, I think is still valid. If we were to get to the point where primary communication was through e-mail, we would likely see a deterioration in relationships. There is a need for body langauge and intonations, especially in casual conversation. If a person is known to you, then you probably can pick up much of what they are communicating solely from the words. Martin L.W. Hall
mcgrath@paris.Berkeley.EDU (Roland McGrath) (07/12/90)
It is of course quite true that electronic mail (and news) lack the information communicated by intonation and pauses in speech and by body language in person. However, I don't think this is necessarily bad. It is simply a different communications medium which must be used differently. I have had long, drawn-out, emotional conversations solely via e-mail. In some cases using the medium of e-mail rather than telephone or personal contact has been helpful in getting ideas communicated. If someone is angry at something that has just been said, they might hang up the phone or leave a personal encounter. I've found mail to be a form of communication which promotes calmness on all sides. In mail, choice of words, *EMPHASIS*, and symbols (;-) convey the emotional information conveyed in speech by intonation and facial expressions. Mail also gives one the chance to correct their words before they cause any harm to the process of communication (by angering or confusing the other party). I can compose, review and edit an electronic letter completely and not have the pressure of someone sitting there staring at me and waiting for me to figure out what I'm saying, and still have it get to them in a few minutes. Another issue is that I find talking on the telephone for long periods of time physically uncomfortable (sweaty ears, crooked necks, etc.). I also can sometimes be distracted and lose track of what's being said. With mail, I can sit comfortably and compose my letter at my leisure; if I'm distracted, I can stop for a while and be distracted and then return without annoying anyone. Electronic mail is yet another way to communicate, and it has its uses just as personal encounters, telephones, and paper mail do. I like to be able to compose at my leisure and still get my letter delivered to the other end of the country in five minutes. I don't think that by choosing electronic mail over phone calls I am necessarily avoiding emotional contact (though that may sometimes be true). I choose the communications medium I think appropriate for the specific communication. Roland McGrath