The First 100 Days - Family Computing and K-Power Magazine ...

COMPUTING CONFIDENTIAL
continued from page 34
having seen people who were obvi
ously eompclcnt and enjoying their
relationships with their machines.
I'd feel that I was just never going to
experience that."
"AS SOON AS THEY
STARTED TALKING
ABOUT STRINGS AND
ARRAYS I JUST WENT
INTO VERY QUIET
HYSTERIA!"
Back home, his frustrations con
tinued to mount. "Oftentimes the
program didn't work the way I want
ed it to. and I couldn't tell whether it
was something I did wrong in pro
gramming or whether it was [the fault
ofl the machine. I would look at my
set of program steps and they made
perfect sense to me!" By his second
month he had developed "a growing
sense of I'm just not going to be able
to hack it." The computer triggered
"a fear that I'm not going to be able
to survive or deal or cope with the
world that's being created around
me. I'm going to be left behind."
Since everybody else seemed com
petent with the machine, David nat
urally concluded that "the problem
was me. /just wasn't adequate." In
retrospect, he realizes that his prob
lems were "a combination of a lot of
things: a piece of equipment that
did not work as it was designed to
work [David's first computer was
eventually discovered to have faulty
memory chips and was replaced by
the store); a matter of documenta
tion not being very good: and a mat
ter of the people who sold it to me
not acknowledging that I was going
to need to do some background
work, in some systematic way, if I
was going to be able to use this
equipment."
And it was also a problem of ex
pectations. "Of course my expecta
tions of how well I should be able to
do were probably also unrealistic."
says David. "I had some idea of what
you might be able to do with a com
puter, but they were very general:
"Gee, 111 be able to be in touch with
the world. . . . I'll have all my books
and records on file so I can just
search for anything I want whenever
1 want to!1 Without the realization
that one, it was going to take a lot of
time kcyboarding in the informa
36 FAMILY COMPUTING
tion; two. I was going to need a lot
more memory for that: and three, I
would either have to spend a long
time learning how to program or go
out and spend a lot of money to get
a program that would do it.
"All my myths, and most of them
were myths, coupled with the fact
that I couldn't even get the computer
to do some very simple things that
the manual said I should be able to
do. made me start to lose faith in my
abilities. It was a slow building of
self-doubt, but it was geometric in
its accumulation! I was about to dis
cover that I was an intellectual and
technical fraud. I fooled everybody
for all these years, but finally I was
going to be exposed to the world. It
sounds silly, but when 1 found my
self at such a loss here, it just car
ried over to everywhere. I questioned
myself about business, and about
the [personal communication]
courses I was teaching [at the Cam
bridge Center)."
Another problem David faced was
where to turn for guidance. When he
passed computer stores on the
street, "I wanted to go in and talk to
them. 1 really wanted to find some
place where I could get some assur
ance." But every time he called the
store where he'd bought the ma
chine, "they were very patronizing. It
was always my fault and not the
computers fault. J couldn't follow in
structions. And in truth, sometimes
it was impossible to follow the in
structions in the manual because
they didn't make a whole lot of
sense!
"So I started to say things to my
self like, 'Well, it's obvious that I
need something else in order to do
what I want to do. I need this piece
of equipment. I need that program.'
And for a while my way of coping
with all this stuff was to look for an
other thing that I could attach to the
computer to make it all right." So he
acquired a joystick. Then a modem.
"Even at home I stopped talking
about the computer to my wife,"
says David, "because I felt the risk of
really failing. She wasn't particularly
interested in the computer to begin
with. I had the sense she thought it
was foolish to spend so much money
on something that wasn't immedi
ately useful." (His wife, Andrea, still
doesn't use the computer, though
their two kids. Alan. 18, and Kris
tin, 14. have since started to use it.)
"But my wife was very tolerant. If we
were at the dinner table she would
ask, 'Arc you going to go off to the
computer?' If I said yes. and went
and turned it on and it didn't work,
then I'd have egg on my face! So I
started to feel myself closing up on
the issue. I really didn't want to talk
about it."
He became increasingly supersti
tious. "I was almost beginning to
feel that I had to sneak up on the
computer, to catch it unawares, so it
would work!" Soon he slopped try
ing. "By my fourth month my enthu
siasm started to get a little tenu
ous." No longer did he stay up until
three in the morning with the com
puter trying to program, as he had
in the first month. Its use went from
"a couple of nights even' now and
then" to no use at all. "My life was
very full. So it was always easy not
to have time to be on the computer.
"And I got to the point where every
RXFOR
COMPUTER
PHOBIA
Do you suffer from cyberphobia
(fear of computers)? Here are five
suggestions to help you ease into us
ing a computer:
1 • Before you buy a computer, first
ask yourself: "What do I want to do
with it?" The clearer your goal is, the
more likely you will achieve success.
2* Think small in the beginning
days. Start with one simple use and
master it. Build your experience and
confidence up from that. Don't worry
about all the other things that com
puters can do.
3* Choose something that's fun to
do. Even if you feel you should be us
ing a computer to plan your monthly
household budget, there's no need to
do that in the first week. Give your
self time to have fun with the ma
chine and become familiar with it.
4« Don't hesitate to ask for help.
But remember: Just because some
body knows a lot about computers
doesn't mean that he or she is the
best teacher for a beginner. Choose a
guide who uses a language you un
derstand.
5« Keep your expectations within
realistic bounds. Don't expect to be
come a millionaire software designer
overnight, or even in a year's time.
Remember that day-to-day use of the
computer is the most successful ap
plication.