By now most of us have figured out that the computer, which was supposed to make life so much easier, now makes life much harder. And dangerous. The problem: Microsoft Windows. This is the operating system for 72% of the personal computers in the world. With over 600 operating systems to choose from, how did this one come to dominate? The answer is simple.
It “helps” you.
Defining “help”
If you use your mouse to move the cursor to text or image linked to another internet site, the cursor changes to a pointer like you see here
You are offered a helping “hand,” The cursor becomes a pointer that permits you to choose that path. The hand says “This way…” to your search for an answer, or relief, or happiness, or humor, whatever you want or need or think you want or need. That is, until someone with an agenda interferes and changes what you think you want or think you need.
Is this hand handy?
Suppose you suddenly took a perverse interest in knowing how your computer turned your cursor into this little helping hand. After some digging you might find something like this…
…which is part of the code that instructs your computer to show you that hand whenever your mouse cursor encounters a link to another part of the internet.
Is this hand helping?
You are thinking “Why do I care about this?” Yes, it would be a lot of trouble to type out all those instructions on your computer terminal screen just to get the cursor appearance to change every time you encounter a link. You just want it to work!!! The little snippet of code above is a tiny little program which executes a string of commands in one click of your mouse. It is, in that sense, helpful.
Who is the hand helping?
Consider this string of historical events. The mouse was invented in the early 1960s but did not become standard issue on personal computers until the mid-1980s. Forty years ago it was common for people to send a “Thank You note” after attending a social event. This morning when I logged on to my computer, without my asking, the Artificial Intelligence bot now built into my “Welcome Screen” (also without my asking) offered to write a Thank You note for me. We may infer from such “help” that the civilized public has now forgotten how or become too lazy to write Thank You notes without digital assistance. Worse, the night before I had been at a gathering. I woke up the next day to a computer that knew where I had been.
Along a parallel path consider the following sequence
The order presented above deserves examination. Of course, mice, politicians and advertisers have been around since the dawn of time. Their appearance in my list is about the time they clambered onto the social media band wagon and began beating the drum that exploits their ability to “help” millions through digital channels.
Taking back control over your life
It recently occurred to me that I needed a regular reminder of these dynamics, a sort of antidote to the constant, endless attempt to nudge me into something that some geek on the other end of my mouse cord (remember when they had cords?) wants me to do. I decided my best, easiest defense would be to install a tiny mental meme to keep me alert. I suspect on your screen your cursor looks something like this…
…and when the word “meme” is also a link, the cursor changes to the helping hand. Not mine. Whenever a link is encountered, my cursor now looks like this:
The pointer icon you see above is small, so let me enlarge it for you. Here is its full-size version.
[next week: It gets worse and what you can do about it]
Thanks for the mousetrap nod, Doc! - James