High-Tech Era Triggers New Phobias ‘Resisters’ Feel Overwhelmed By Intimidating Computers

The world runs on computers and, in a sense, computers run the world. But all this technological progress comes at a price, a new problem psychologists call computer phobia.

It is everywhere - in private industry, in government and in the home. For many people computers are wondrous machines offering access to a vast world of knowledge.

But to others they are impersonal monsters that react to an errant key stroke with this brusque message: “You have performed an illegal operation. This computer will shut down.”

When the car or the dishwasher breaks down, people curse the machine. Often when the computer malfunctions, the first reaction is, “What have I done wrong?”

Nowhere is the problem of computer phobia likely to show up the most than in the federal government. The government has millions of computers. Literally.

Larry Irving, assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information, said there are people “who resist and people who are intimidated” by the increasingly technological focus of their jobs.

“It’s a problem, but it’s not insurmountable,” he said. “You just have to find a reason for people to get over it.”

Irving cited the man at the top of the government. “My sense is the president did not spend a lot of time doing personal e-mail until his daughter went to college,” he said.

“A lot of people are embarrassed about saying they’re afraid of computers,” said Carol Goldberg, a clinical psychologist who conducts workshops to help corporations deal with technological stress.

Michelle Weil, a clinical psychologist in Orange, Calif., and co-author of the book, “TechnoStress: Coping with Stress at Work, at Home, at Play,” said about 15 percent of people love technology and up to 25 percent of the rest are what she called “resisters.”

“The resisters will have higher stress, lower productivity, less efficiency and higher workers comp claims,” she said.

As the biggest user of computers, has the government seen greater absenteeism as technology grows?

“I suspect that may be true,” said Don Heffernan, assistant chief information officer at the General Services Administration, the government property agency.

A year ago, every GSA employee was given Internet access, Heffernan said. “Going into that we knew there were going to be people, even people who used computers a bit, who were going to be intimidated by the Internet,” he said.

To help employees adjust to the new technology, GSA Administrator David Barram urged those who were experienced in using the Internet to “become five-minute tutors” for those intimidated by the technology.

Weil is less confident than the government officials that getting over computer phobia is just a matter of incentive.

“This problem has not gone away,” she said. “In fact, it’s getting worse. We wondered that as technology got more commonplace in society wouldn’t people just get used to it.

“The answer is no. In fact, some of the technology now makes less sense than the technology did 15 years ago.”

Irving, the Commerce Department official, said the biggest indication that people are overcoming computer phobia is in one huge number. “This year 2.7 trillion e-mail are going to be sent around the world,” he said.

“That means a lot of people have overcome their paranoia and their phobia.”