Tech trouble related stress

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Crashing machines, slow boot times, and agony dealing with technical support have Digital Age people suffering from Computer Stress Syndrome, a study available online Tuesday found.

"Today's digitally-dependent consumers are increasingly overwhelmed and upset with technical glitches and problems in their daily lives," a communications industry think tank said in a report entitled "Combating Computer Stress Syndrome."

The report identified sources of peoples' pain as "frustrating, complex computers and devices, technical failures, viral infections, and long waits to resolve support issues."

Findings were based on a survey of more than 1,000 people in North America by a Customer Experience Board created by the Chief Marketing Officer Council to look into how to keep customers happy in the highly competitive communications sector.

"The reality is that numerous, persistent problems are troubling most computer users, creating unnecessary anguish and anxiety as a result," the study found.

"Digitally dependent users are getting fed up and frustrated with the current state of computer related stress, and clearly looking for a better way to address and reduce it."

Full story here.

Haha. I just had to laugh as I read this news story especially the comments left by the readers at the Yahoo news site. I can really identify with tech trouble related stress!

One commenter at the news site suggested, and I completely agree, the problem is mostly this: It's called something isn't going your way and it's stressing you out.

Last weekend, my iPhone crashed. I was in a hotel room with no access to the internet, and I could not restore the phone to its original settings. I was cussing and grumbling the whole weekend about the "stupid" phone.

I borrowed my husband's iPhone and read whatever I could about finding solutions to the problem with the phone. Previously, I had cleverly followed all the instructions on how to jailbreak and unlock the phone, and restoring the iPhone to its original settings was going to make all my hard work disappear, not to mention the non-Apple applications that I had installed on the iPhone! That was added stress!

So are there better ways to address and reduce tech trouble related stress?

How about using less of the computer and any tech related gadget? A little hard when our life has become so dependent on these gadgets!

How about making better products that won't fail on us that frequently? Huh?

How about making tech support more friendly and more efficient? The kind that is available 24/7 and at our whim and fancy?

Thank goodness, the iPhone was the only tech trouble I had to deal with in a long time, and the trouble with it wasn't that difficult to resolve. I did not have to call any kind of tech support.