Conflicts With Other People

Much of stress in life comes from conflicts and interpersonal difficulties encountered with other people. While the computer world may give the illusion of working alone and isolating oneself from others, this is not really the case.

Both at home and at work, many different types of computer related conflicts and resultant stress can arise. At home, there may be issues of sharing usage between family members, exposure of children to outside influences, increased financial burdens, conflicts over the amount of time spend at the terminal (or not being spent elsewhere) and many others. These types of conflicts require strong communication, relationship building and negotiation skills.

At work, similar types of issues can surface. Conflicts over access to shared company resources, such as laser printers, network searches or the availability of expert assistance , are very common.

At home or at work , there are vendors, customers, other computer users and their networked virtual communities and many other people who might be interacted with, both on line and in person. Some of these interactions can sometimes be stressful. Because computers expand our capabilities for social interactions and because such interactions are often beyond our direct personal control, computers tend to increase our stress in this very important and difficult area of living harmoniously with other human beings.