Technology and Personality

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In general I think that how one uses technology, and what they do with it, is in large part a reflection of their personality. Certain aspects of their psyche manifest when using things like computers and various devices, this is especially noticeable when we examine the way people use software, what software they choose to use, and how they use their computers in general. In theory, we could create simple pictures and diagrams to represent whether someone i s "good with software" or "good with hardware", and so on. However, I think that's extremely limited at best, and likely to be faulty.

One of the inherent problems of a traditional chart or scale is the fact that it does not account for more dimensions. It is difficult, if not impossible, on these scales to place someone who is skilled in hardware and software, in a niche area, because of advanced knowledge in software, or similar. Those kind of charts would limit us to saying either A, the person is skilled in X and not in Y, or B, that person is skilled in both ( this assumes that they are not unskilled). Immediately the problem is clear. To represent the aforementioned situation with the multi-skilled person, we need a chart with more dimensions. A primitive example is below:

In this chart, we have a square-triangle like figure. It has a square base, however it has a central convergence point, as well as the downward opening vertex. The area near and around the convergence point is meant to represent the balance of being both skilled in hardware and in software. The arrows represent a limit approaching more and more complexity.

This chart and the ideas around it are only one dimension in itself. It is only the complexity dimension, however, the value of this dimension (we shall denote as D[sub]1[/sub]) can have impact on the other dimensions (D[sub] n[/sub]).

Other dimensions might be things like technological preferences, or various outlooks about life in general that influence and bleed into the person's perception of the technology. Regardless of how many dimensions there are, I think that they are all in some way inseparable. They all have some influence on each other and exist in different parts of the mind.

In an attempt to show what I mean visually, here is a shape:

The interplay of different personalities with technology manifests in a variety of ways. For example, how someone goes about a situation in which they need to get a certain task done using software.
Someone who has a personality that is more analytic and perhaps introverted might approach things in a widely different manner than someone who generally goes by sensation and the like. A common example is that of the majority of Apple users. I think they would be more classified in the sensation category of technology use. They perceive what is around them and look for what it "cool", that is, what they're told is the next best thing. They aren't typically the ones to point out technical flaws in things, or to spend much time learning how to use new technology, namely software. As with everything, there are exceptions, and there are Apple users who do have rational reasons for what they use, but a lot use it because of the name, the brand, etc. not because it's necessarily better for their purposes.

I think that the above can be adapted for a variety of situations, in order to give insight into the ways different personalities interact and are affected by, or effect technology.

 

[A Link In Time]

Great thread, Kitsu. I prompted me to reconsider technology and the way I and the over 7 billion other people on this world interact with it.

The "tech culture" so to speak took the world by storm in the twentieth century. Prior urbanization and industrialization had already foreshadowed the necessity for new mechanical variants and the two World Wars confirmed the new direction the globe was taking. Advances were made in warfare, medicine, and computing. All three spheres defined the Earth our forefathers peopled but their influence is farther reaching today, especially that of the third. Instant messaging and social networking, for example, allow us to keep contact with others across the world. The question this thread poses is whether or not the various software and hardware usage of individuals is "shallow" or "deep" depending on their personality.

The opening post creates a dichotomy of either people are analytic and thoughtful in their approach to modern telecommunication or brash and sensational. This slightly oversimplifies the argument. What this threads examines is the human persona. With respect to the area of technology, people converge with various mechanisms depending on what they care for personally, the peculiar capacity that is emotion. If someone (referred to as Person A for purpose of example) feels passionate about the social aspect of technology they could perhaps dive deeper, formulate independent research, and craft new ways to personalize and maximize usage of the medium. That same Person A could be not in the last interesting in the hardware side of the argument with the composition of computers, the best graphics cards, retina display, etc. completely flying over their heads. Person B, on the other hand, could build his own PCs from scratch but not have a clue about which software is optimal or how to improve an already existing program.

In regards to loyalty to a specific company, the media and immediate surrounding society influences a consumer's decision. It's interesting you mention Apple as an example. The iPod, iPhone, and iPad are hardly the best music device, cell phone, or tablet, respectively, but the immense praise and hype they receive from news stations worldwide fuels the hype surrounding these products. Also if children in the school environment or adults in the workplace see their compatriots using these devices often and enjoying them they may be inclined to purchase them as well regardless of the quality. With respect to the videogame sphere this same mentality permeates Nintendo fans. Players don't flock to the Wii or DS because they're the most powerful or feature filled hardware but because they are a reliable brand name with recognizable characters and a broad spectrum of software appealing to all walks of gamers. It depends on what you favor from hardware and its accompanying software whether it's the unique experience, raw power under the hood, or societal pressure to conform. Everybody is a winner, just in different ways.

 

[(◕‿◕✿)]

The opening post creates a dichotomy of either people are analytic and thoughtful in their approach to modern telecommunication or brash and sensational. This slightly oversimplifies the argument. What this threads examines is the human persona. With respect to the area of technology, people converge with various mechanisms depending on what they care for personally, the peculiar capacity that is emotion. If someone (referred to as Person A for purpose of example) feels passionate about the social aspect of technology they could perhaps dive deeper, formulate independent research, and craft new ways to personalize and maximize usage of the medium. That same Person A could be not in the last interesting in the hardware side of the argument with the composition of computers, the best graphics cards, retina display, etc. completely flying over their heads. Person B, on the other hand, could build his own PCs from scratch but not have a clue about which software is optimal or how to improve an already existing program.

Originally I was actually going to include more detail about the analytic/sensational approach, but I ended up not including it. Below is part of an original draft I had written prior to his post:

In general I think that the way people use and/or approach technology can be classified as different technological-mentalities. We can observe these most easily when we look at individual's choices in software they use, even the hardware. This still can be divided into subgroups and categories.

For instance, we can have the dimension of does the individual prefer to support Open Source software, or do they not care, or do they prefer Proprietary. So, already we have created a set with three items. It can be said that those who prefer one of the three will gravitate toward certain aspects of other dimensions. So in this sense, the characteristics are much like vector, they have a variety of dimensions.

Fleshing out this vector, we can say that there are in general four dimensions that are relevant.

1. Preference of Hardware (do they prefer custom build or prebuilt? etc.)
2. Preference of Software (ala the aforementioned types)
3. Approach to challenges (go by the manual, research, tinker, etc.)
4. General approach to computing.

Dimensions 1 and 2 (D1 and D2) are relatively straightforward, although a layer of
complexity can apply. For D1, it is generally a trichotomy of "Macs", vs prebuilt
PCs, vs custom-built PCs. Although this is most common case, we shouldn't limit ourselves
to this trichotomy.

D2 generally refers to another trichotomy: Prefer Open Source, general indifference,
prefer proprietary. Again, this is simply a generalization, there are other outliers.



The value of D1 can exert influence on D2. For example, an individual who is of the Macs preference would likely have tendency toward D2-Indifference XOR Proprietary. Meaning that they either are indifferent to the licensing of the software they use, the development method, etc. or they have some level of dislike for Open Source. Macs in general, however, are a complicating factor, because inherent to Macs is the OS X operating system. On the other hand, with PCs there is no inherent OS, exceptions being prebuilts, but even those sometimes come with alternative OS. So, it would seem that Mac is somewhat an outlier, unlike the other two (prebuilt PC and custom-built PC).

The two PC categories can be split into five.

1. Users who get prebuilt with Windows
2. Users who custom-build and install Windows
3. Users who custom-build, install Linux et al.
4. Users who custom build, install Windows & Linux et al.
5. Users who get prebuilt, multi-boot OS.

I don't really know if it can be assumed that any of these subcategories can be said to cause a tendency toward a certain preference of software, as many who custom build use Windows and play games and such, while there's a lot of people who get prebuilts and install Debian or whatever, so I would assume it is relatively neutral in general, though special cases may vary.

Continuing on to the latter categories of approach to problem solving, and general computing approach, it can be observed that there is a definite difference in the way different types of software preferences apply to users. The majority (not all, of course) of Mac users exemplify the antithesis of an individual who prefers Open Source software, or even FOSS. Differences are in general mentality as well as general approach.

I would say there are generally two spectra. One being that of people who care about types of software, OS, FOSS, Proprietary, etc. and the other those who don't. I would also propose that each spectrum exists in R2, that is, there are two dimensions to each one. Example being,

y
|
|
| *
|_ _ _ _ _x

In this sense, on each spectrum an individual can fall somewhere in that space. The X-axis represents relative Hardware Complexity, whereas the Y-axis represents the relative Software Complexity.

It's still an idea in very early, "alpha" so to speak, stages, but hopefully that gives a better idea of what I was trying to say. Basically, I think that there are a variety of types of people who use technology, or, in better wording, people's psyches are reflected in general by the way they interact with technology as well as the the technology they use.