Technophobia: The Psychological Impact of Information Technology [Paperback]

Mark J. Brosnan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 28, 1998

Technology is taking over all aspects of life. Yet studies have shown that up to one half the population is 'technophobic'. This means having negative opinions or being anxious about information technology like personal computers. This book examines the origins of technophobia - what it is, who has it and what causes it.
The impact of gender is examined and the social and cognitive psychological factors underlying technophobia are reviewed and combined into an overall psychological model. Techniques for reducing technophobia are discussed, and the effect of technophobia on everyone from school children to teenagers is analysed. Technophobia will be useful both for academic study of the area, and for those devising IT policy in schools, business and government.

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (June 28, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415135974
• ISBN-13: 978-0415135979
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,976,875 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very academical overview of the term Technophobia, December 8, 2000

By 

jackofsometrades "jackofsometrades" (Finland, EU) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Technophobia: The Psychological Impact of Information Technology (Paperback)

This book was required reading for a usability class I attended. I didn't really like the book myself. It was quite verbose and apparently written by and for academics. The book asks the questions what is technophobia, and who are technophobic. It relates to dozens of previous studies conducted by the author and other researchers. It looks into things like Cognitive Development Theory, Social Learning Theory, etc. in order to define technophobia and to find out how best to deal with it.

This book is for two kinds of people: 1) researchers and students who are interested in technophobia in an academical sense 2) people who are in charge of designing the use of computers in public places like schools, libraries, educational and other public services.

I as a student of Usability and User Interface design got very little of this text. The basic stuff was sometimes interesting to me, but the academical form of the text was a downer. There were occasions where a sentence was cut of by references and continues after four (4!) lines of ref. listing. I had to reread the beginning of the sentence just to remember what was being discussed. The text uses the references as part of text constantly, in a very annoying way. Instead of saying "A is B (Doe 1995)." it says "According to (Doe 1995) A is B." and that lessens the readability when it is present in every paragraph.

I had trouble deciding wether to give 2 or 3 stars. I gave 3 because I think that academic people will get more out of this text. If you are not one of them, beware!

PS. Every chapter ended with a very good summary. I found this very helpful when preparing for the exam of the class.