**Surely this is a continuation of my Psychology series – for the first time in Malaysia at last!!! – where I write down whatever crazy observations I make about mental and personality… derangements (I don’t have a degree yet – just started my BA actually! – so ‘health’ or ‘disorders’ would be too professional, which I’m not. At all.). Actually just read for fun or if you like to overthink like me and crave for thought-provoking stuff.**
I don’t know about you but every time my laptop undergoes an installation of any kind of programs, I freak out about the possibility that it will fail and eventually ruin my laptop forever.
I have this irrational fear that I will lose my laptop, in the figurative sense, that is, that it will cease to function.
Yes, it feels as if my laptop is like my soul mate or child or someone so important in my life that if it leaves me… it will be the end of the world for me.
So you can imagine in what state I am when my dear laptop is having a technical problem or difficulty…
My symptoms:
My breathing quickens and shortens. My heart beats… irregularly. I can’t stop brushing my hair back. I tend to pace a lot, if I’m alone, talk aloud. I can’t think of anything else, and thus I can’t concentrate on doing something else. In short, I’m totally useless. Well, not exactly, since while I can’t concentrate on work or anything, my brain is fully activated in solving the technical problem and in constant search for solutions.
Oh, I remember I even cried when I was young, only because my iPod couldn’t connect to my iTunes on my laptop, because I thought that I would never be able to use my iPod ever again.
Eventually, I can still use it, and it’s been 6 years now 🙂
What I find ironic, though, is that even if I care about my laptop as if it was a part of me, it’s actually easy for me to go from one laptop to another. The one I’m using now is indeed my 3rd one… 3 laptops in 7 years! I remember that at first I thought it would have been hard for me to be separated from my good old first laptop… but then as soon as I got a new one, it felt even better!
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In all seriousness I have no idea whether this… technological anxiety can be a true kind of mental crisis for some people out there. I don’t think it even exists among the official mental disorders, but if any of you know exactly what it feels like… then I somehow feel you!
Actually, a good metaphor for this type of anxiety for me personally would be as if I’m in a hospital and waiting for an operation (that of a dear one) to end in the silent white waiting room… Like, somehow, when my laptop has technical difficulties, I feel powerless all of a sudden and all I can do is try different solutions (going to the hospital and going over the options) and then pray and wait for one of them to work (yep, waiting room trauma).
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Writing this post actually feels weird… is it because it’s been a while since I wrote a psychology post? Probably.
Anyway, I think that’s all I have to say on the subject, so… have a good day everyone! 😀
An Evil Nymph.
An Evil Nymph's Blog 
Being non-tech savvy, always have the same kind of problem. To me, computer is Just like women, I will never figure out how it work and behave !
Haha I love your way of seeing it!
Being concerned whenever an update takes place on your computer is perfectly natural because it usually requires that you don’t turn the machine off while the update takes place – cue the justifiable fear of power outage during the update. Resolving issues with the operating system are usually easy as PC’s usually come with a version of theri original load on the main drive.
The key problem is your personal files. These aren’t usually affected by a crash during system upgrades as they are not involved. The only risk to your personal files is hard-disk failure. I suggest you look at getting a standalone solution where copies of your files are stored external to the machine. Seagate and other hard-drive manufacturers supply these and in the modern age they are plug-n-play devices 🙂
Oh thanks for sharing! 🙂