I read an article titled ‘In Our Own Image’ in New Scientist 27th Nov 2010 that referred to humans tendency to anthropomorphise objects. Adam Waytz et al found that this is more likely to happen when we are faced with unpredictable situations or entities. This effect was seen in study where desktop computers were considered to have ‘a life of their own’ when they froze unexpectedly.
It was suggested that people can feel disproportionately angry with their computer when it has a problem, because they feel as if they have a partnership with the machine, and it has let them down. Cliffird Nass suggests “It’s a betrayal of trust”.
Interestingly lonely people are more likely to see human qualities in objects. Whereas socially connected people are more likely to ‘fail to see the humanity in real people’. Waytz et al suggests that feelings of security and power might make us see others as objects rather than as people.
Does this then mean that lonely people tend to find computers more frustrating than others?