Cyberphobia Fear Of Computers Leaves The Afflicted Frozen At Their Keyboards

The postcard Janet Hurd mails to advertise her business is illustrated with a shock-haired man biting his fingernails.

HELP, the man is saying.

Hurd knows her market, and her market is frightened.

Like the man on the postcard, the people who hire Hurd sit before computer terminals bug-eyed and frozen. Afraid of what they might do, intimidated by what they should be able to do, embarrassed by what they can’t do.

“I’ve had clients sitting at a keyboard, and their hands were actually trembling,” said Hurd, a computer trainer and consultant in Palm Beach Gardens.

If computers represent a brave new world, many of us need some help with the brave part. Like technological innovations before it - from the steam engine to the radio - home computers scare people - lots of people.

A Gallup Poll released recently found that 49 percent of white-collar workers describe themselves as “cyberphobic or resistant to new technology.”

But computers are scary in a way steam engines never were. Most of us don’t have a clue how computers work.

Steam engines replaced muscle power, but computers outdo mind power, something that always has been uniquely human.

“There’s an opaqueness to the technology,” said Nelson Kellogg, a professor of humanities who teaches the history of technology at Sonoma State University in California.

Consider the radio.

A curious kid could take one apart, see how it worked and build another just like it with crude ingredients. That put the talking box within human control and therefore made it less threatening.

No such luck with computers. They’re what’s called a closed technology most people can only hope to use, not understand.

Basically we’re afraid that the machine is smarter than we are.

It’s a fear made worse by the speedy pace of computer progress. Computer technology is changing and improving rapidly, and the average person doesn’t have a clear idea of where it’s going or where it’s taking them.

“That’s chaos,” Kellogg said, “and we fear chaos.”

Even smart people are apprehensive about cyberspace.

Dave Smith, a Jupiter, Fla., man who studied chemical engineering in college and now works in marketing, bought a computer for Christmas. His plan: Introduce his children, 5 and 9, to the future, and use the machine for business correspondence.

The kids love it, and the 9-year-old flips from screen to screen with abandon.

“Me? I’m looking at it with jaundiced eyes,” Smith confided. “I’m suspicious of that thing.”

So far, he admits sheepishly, he’s learned to play blackjack and golf on the machine.

“I still haven’t loaded it up and turned this into a word processor,” said Smith, 53. “I would call it consternation, but it’s deep-down fear.”

Frankly, Smith is afraid he’ll break the thing.

“I’ve heard one nightmare story after another of wiping out the hard disk, of dumping everything,” he said. “But I have learned that they’re not nearly as fragile as I’d believed.”

His son, 9-year-old Skyler, doesn’t worry about such things. He knows his mistakes aren’t permanent.

“If you do something and you don’t know where you are, you just click back,” he said.

Technology professor Kellogg said children are better with computers because the way they think about new things meshes perfectly with today’s software. By nature, children would rather just wade into something new than cautiously read instructions, and the latest operating programs reward the adventurous.

If you ask Windows - the most common operating system that translates computer language into plain English and pictures - to do something it can’t do, it just tells you it can’t do it. It doesn’t break down.

“It’s like making paper airplanes,” Kellogg said, “but when you don’t like what you’ve made, you don’t have a mess to clean up or a bunch of wasted paper.”

But computers are not invulnerable to operator error.

Skyler’s dad is right when he worries about erasing information from the computer’s permanent memory, called the hard disk. That is possible, although it’s hard to do by accident.

To a computer, everything is just a file - the letter you typed to your Aunt Edna, the recipe list for the holidays, the instructions the computer needs to crank up a program. They’re all files, and they all can be deleted rather simply.

Fortunately, computers flash warnings before they’ll let you delete a file.

To avoid tempting fate, the first thing Hurd does with new clients is gently tell them that for a while they should stay away from the File Manager, which gives access to all files.

She recalls a client who, in an effort to free up some of his computer’s memory, started deleting files with names he didn’t recognize. Many of those files were the instructions that told the computer how to work. So soon, the computer stopped working.

But take heart in this story.

At least he did it on purpose.

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What to know about your computer You’ll never know everything about your computer. But if you’re going to get any use from it, you have to know some things. We asked technical advisers at some of the larger computer manufacturers, including Compaq, Packard Bell and AT&T, for tips for beginners. Their advice: Know your computer’s configuration. This refers to three major components in the system: the hard drive, the amount of memory and the microprocessor. Example: 340 megabyte hard disk with 8 megabytes of random access memory (called RAM) and a 486DX66 microprocessor. This information is easily available. If it’s not listed on the outside of the computer box or in the manual, check with the someone at the store where you bought it. Know the system software. The most common software systems used to run IBM-compatible home computers are DOS (disk operating system) and Windows. Both have been updated through the years, so know which version you have. Example: DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1 are new editions. Make a cheat-sheet of all this basic information so it’s available even when you’re stuck in some bewildering screen, far away from the setup program. When you call technical people for help, they’ll need this information before they can offer advice. When buying new software, carefully read the system requirements on the software label to see if your system has enough memory and a fast-enough microprocessor to run the new program. If the software box doesn’t say it can be used through Windows, it probably can’t be. If you have friends who already use personal computers for the same tasks you want to do, ask for their advice on what software to buy. If you buy the same software, they can help if you have trouble setting it up. Know how to check your available disk space. Software problems often result from a lack of available memory, even if the cryptic error message you get doesn’t say that. In Windows, available disk space appears at the bottom of the screen when you call up File Manager. Take the time to read the built-in tutorials. They don’t tell you everything, but they often give good step-by-step instructions for tasks. Example: The wordprocessing tutorial offers a guided tour of all the ways you can create and edit copy. Scott Montgomery Cox News Service

Key words in computer world Hard Disk - the computer’s permanent memory. It is built into each computer at the factory and allows you to store a fixed amount of information or programs. Information may also be stored on floppy disks, which are not a permanent part of the computer. RAM Random access memory, the working memory of the computer. Information you add using RAM a letter, a resume, a household budget - must then be saved onto the hard disk or floppy disk. Otherwise the information will be lost when you turn off the computer. Software - general term for computer programs you can install on your computer. These could be programs to play games, help you do your taxes or teach your children math. Many personal computers come with a variety of software already loaded. This differs from hardware, which refers to the physical components of the computer. Windows - the brand name of operating system software made by Microsoft. Using boxes with little symbols called icons, Windows translates the cryptic language your computer understands into words and pictures you can understand. Competing programs do the same thing - most notable is IBM’s new OS2/Warp - but Windows is still the most popular. DOS - Disk operating system. This is the basic language your computer knows, the one Windows translates. To use DOS, you must know its vocabulary of commands. Multimedia - term for the new trend in computers. Two major components make a multimedia computer: Sound card - This is the computer equivalent of an amplifier. Coupled with speakers, the sound card lets a computer play and record music or other sounds. CD-ROM drive This allows the computer to read information (or play music) off a compact disc. The ROM in CD-ROM stands for “read only memory,” which means the computer cannot store information on the CD; it only reads what’s already there. Scott Montgomery Cox News Service