I’m at my desk this morning in my study in my Chelsea apartment, drafting a piece on my feelings of technical inadequacy. It’s among my first attempts to get my story underway, even though I’ve been suffering from computer troubles most of my career.
I click on my handsome all-in-one computer but worry immediately when the screen remains dark, failing to light up as expected in milliseconds. My heart sinks. I catastrophize, imagining the device is in trouble, fearing I’ve lost the text I’ve been writing over the last days.
Everyday Tech Challenges
I’m a digital immigrant, raised on instant gratification. If my screen doesn’t pop open right away, I’m ready to call in the Geek Squad. In an uncanny scene, as if scripted for an indie comedy, when my screen finally brightens and I begin working on my draft again, a string of techie crises overwhelms me, as if designed to dramatize my plight to illuminate my struggles.
Suddenly, a new window pops up, asking for my access code, but it doesn't accept it. Later in the day, my screen goes fuzzy, looking like a glass window in an old-fashioned public toilet stall. The same afternoon, a commanding, booming voice emanated from the speaker demanding, “STOP ILLEGAL ACTIVITY,” urging me not to turn off my computer, insisting that I fill in personal details in a space provided on the screen, guaranteeing my data will be saved from devastation.
Since I’ve experienced similar scams before, I was able to take it somewhat in stride with a deep breath and turn off my computer, silencing the tyrannical voice, turning the machine back on without damage. Still, my heart did skip a beat, fearing the worst. Luckily, I’d been here before when similar catastrophic warnings evaporated as I learned to ignore them.
Feeling Lost in Technical Language
But routine technical obstacles give me trouble. I’m not skilled at the simplest tasks, stymied posting on social media, clueless finding my Word files, stumped when I can’t locate the cursor on my screen, bewildered looking at videos but not knowing how to turn on the sound.
Often, when confronted by technical details posted on computer screens, I have little idea what they are about—what they’re for, what they mean, nor exactly what they encompass. Inadequacy, failure, helplessness, frustration and irritation are feelings I’ve had to manage all these years. Not being fully familiar with the language of technology, it’s as if I’m an alien in a foreign country where I don't understand the language and often get lost.
Leading Online
In an academic career in online learning spanning nearly two decades, I must confess I’ve never been a confident digital wiz. Matter of fact, I’ve often been pretty freaked out by it. Even as I led a couple of remote learning operations at NYU and at Stevens Institute of Technology, I was often flummoxed.
The curious thing about my plight is that, for a great part of my work life, I’ve been deeply involved with technology. As a consultant, I advised academic libraries on negotiating digital journal contracts and later led online education at two colleges.
Psychological Roots of Tech Anxiety
Psychologists say that some of us are drawn to behavior we fear because the experience creates an exhilarating rush in a safe, controlled environment, allowing us to feel the excitement in a fight-or-flight response without actually being in danger, leading to feelings of euphoria, heightened alertness and a sense of mastery. Or I may be trapped in what Freud recognized as repetition compulsion—a concept he coined—an unconscious tendency to repeat past, often traumatic, experiences and behaviors relived in the present. Freud claimed sufferers may be trying to master or resolve unresolved trauma experienced earlier in their lives by going through similar situations in the present, even if painful or unsatisfied. I am drawn to technology for its exciting, innovative possibilities but unnerved by fear of my tech inadequacy.
Relying on Soft Skills and Colleagues
It turns out, luckily, I possess other attributes required to go online, mostly soft skills that propel remote learning—managerial competencies, marketing arts and other nontechnical strengths.
In the years when I was a senior academic officer, when I’d get stuck with technical obstacles, I’d often reach out to students, colleagues and others for help, asking those with skills I lacked to fill in where I couldn’t.
Support From Trusted Tech-Savvy Allies
When I was dean of online learning at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, I'd call upon Marlene Leekang, now a senior Baruch College executive. Marlene, a highly confident colleague with sharp skills in computer applications, spreadsheets and other essential operating tools, sat in an adjoining office. I’d run next door every so often, stymied by routine tech obstacles that she easily swept away, freeing me from screwing up. And a former NYU undergrad, Earl Co, now a global real estate investor living in Spain, would occasionally run over to my apartment after class to perform his magic, as if he was an Apple Genius, untangling whatever mess I was in. To this day, he posts my new videos and my newly released articles on a website he designed many years ago.
Early Fears in the Digital Workspace
In the very early days of my career in scientific and technical publishing, I’d avoid touching the keyboard for fear of botching everything. As computers invaded the workspace long ago, when workers were just beginning to become familiar with them, I’d often stand over assistants, who tapped away at the keys as I dictated.
In an essay published in Inside Higher Ed some years ago, I made an early confession of my feelings of online learning inadequacy:
“After nearly two decades of cajoling dig-their-heels-in, grumbling faculty to go online, I’ve never taught online myself. My formidable job was to encourage reluctant professors to set aside their qualms, step away from their comfortably proud position at the front of the classroom and do what many thought was the repellent thing. I’ve been an online general who sent his virtual troops into battle but, shamefully, never fought in the digital trenches myself. Feeling like a fraud all these years, it was time to step up to the challenge.”
Learning to Teach Online
It wasn’t until I taught at The New School, when I finally got down to it and learned how to teach online. My instructional designer, Shira Richman, now assistant provost of Instructional Design and Assessment, guided me through it all like a coach training a champion athlete for a big game, unknotting my fears, unraveling my anxieties. Best of all, Shira built my confidence week after week.
Technostress Across Higher Ed
It’s not surprising that many in higher ed face some of the same obstacles I do, especially older faculty and staff. Privately, some of my friends and colleagues say they bear the same frustrations but are reluctant to reveal what troubles them for fear of getting rebuffed for jobs they covet. Many suffer from what’s come to be known as “technostress,” in which they feel overwhelmed by complex systems or fear their skills are no longer at the center of things [“Comparing the Technostress Experienced by U.S. Higher Education Faculty, Administrators, and Staff,” a dissertation by Cornish, Denise, Grand Canyon University, 2020].
Over decades of digital engagement, I was known as an authority, curiously with little or no actual technical expertise. However, most of my research for my books, columns and articles are drawn from online research. Even now, as I write this essay, I’ve not only searched the web but toyed with AI to investigate how others may deal with technical fear. Luckily, despite years of anxiety, I’ve been able to get away with being a technophobe in a high-tech world, inexplicably in a quite fulfilling career.
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