Glued to the Screen, Reuters, £30 (A4 pbk)
This expensive, 50-page report by Reuters is an unusual piece of research to say the least. Its full title is Glued to the Screen: An investigation into in- formation addiction world- wide. The cover shows three men in shirts and suits, each appearing to headbang a monitor, or maybe embrace it (it's not clear).
And its two-page foreword by an eminent psychologist begins: "For many people, `addiction' involves drugs - but there are social scientists like myself who view many non-drug activities as potentially addictive, including gambling, overeating, sex, exercise, computer game playing and Internet usage."
The survey was fairly widely covered in the media last week - RTE's Network 2 television even asked cybercafe customers whether they would admit to being Internet addicts.
But does it live up to its title? And if you're looking for hard, empirical research about this "information addiction worldwide", will you be disappointed by the report?
Despite the title, it isn't a "worldwide" investigation. It covers six countries - Ireland, Britain, Germany, the US, Singapore and Hong Kong (so it's several continents short of a full planet). And it is more concerned with opinion than fact. The survey was based on confidential telephone interviews with 1,000 business executives, over four fifths of them in middle or senior management. In other words it's an opinion poll.
While the title, cover and intro emphasise information addiction, the report sets out seven formal objectives. None of these mentions "information addiction" at all; instead, they concentrate on "information overload". So how exactly do they make the link (or leap) from overload to addiction?
In the section about "information addiction", most of the questions are about the respondents' views of their colleagues. Or as the methodology section puts it: "Use of the third-person technique allows respondents to project their own attitudes and behaviours onto their colleagues, revealing more of their own true feelings."
From a table on page 41, though, it appears that 395 of these managers - almost two in five - either don't have a PC at work or (in the case of at least 340 of them) do have a PC at work but don't go online at work. In other words, nearly 40 per cent don't use computer networks in their workplaces - which sounds more like a case of technophobia than technophilia. What are we to make of their agreement with questions about whether their colleagues "crave information" or "seem to be obsessed with gathering information" or "lose all track of time when they are online"?
Let's reverse the situation: what do the managers who actually are online think of the ones who aren't? While there have certainly been several well-publicised cases in the States of people exhibiting compulsive behaviour in online chat zones and the like, the report plays to the gallery with all its comparisons to drug addiction - particularly heroin.
In Ireland, 44 of the 50 interviewees were "particularly concerned" that "PCs, the Internet and information could be addictive in the future". What exactly does this mean? Surely "PCs, the Internet and information" are three very distinct things: are people really "addicted" to PCs as such? Or to the computer networks the machines might be used to access? Or to the content of these networks? Which is it?
Are questions such as "If information was classified as a drug, do you know some people who could be described as being addicted to it?" really scientific? And the respondents with children aged six to 18 were asked whether they were "fearful that kids will grow up to be information junkies?"
At the end of the report, I'm still not sure what an information junkie is. The language is reminiscent of previous moral panics about video games, "video nasties", video arcades, television, comics, jazz music. . .
The "information addiction" parts of the report tend to overshadow some interesting sections about workplace stress and the deep-rooted changes in working practices among management of recent years.
Another report by Reuters last year found that 41 per cent of managers thought their working environments were very stressful; but in this latest survey 65 per cent said their working environments had grown more stressful, with "tighter deadlines, more information received and used each day, and more time being spent in the office", and a blurring of the boundaries between work and leisure time.
That's a big jump. But are studies such as these tending to portray managers purely as victims? Victims of information overload, of increasingly stressful working situations, surrounded by colleagues who are, well, addicts?
The report doesn't tell us how much these mostly senior and middle managers might even be part of the problem. Eighty-three per cent of them said they believed their companies could ease information overload by investing in training courses, but 58 per cent (in Ireland this figure rose to 72 per cent) admitted their companies don't offer such training. If the same interviewees are actually managing - running - their companies, why don't they have some say in matters such as training? What are the obstacles involved? By the time I'd finished reading this study, I seemed to have more questions than answers. Is information really such a bad thing? What exactly is information? Can we do without it? And what happens to us when we do?
Finally, while "information overload" might indeed be a real and growing problem for some businesses in the countries surveyed (and in the universe of real-time financial data that Reuters provides) there is another universe too - the wider world which Reuters itself covers wearing its other hat, as a news agency.
In that other world, many societies are still run on the very opposite basis - of information scarcity, cabinet secrecy, widespread censorship and the withholding of ideas.
Microsoft EasyBall and Explorapedia, £30
Not new, but well worth a look if your computer is used by under-eights (and certainly by under-fours) the EasyBall is meant to make Windows usable for small hands. It is essentially an inverted mouse - an appealingly shaped cursor-controller with a giant-sized yellow ball which makes pointing and clicking much easier.
There is one large blue button, with more travel and a more definite click than on a mouse. On either side are plastic handles which mean the EasyBall can be held in the child's lap and still be easily used. One benefit of this is that the youngster can be persuaded to sit back on a chair, instead of leaning up in the noseto-the-screen position that the desktop mouse encourages.
Included with the big yellow ball, the nature CD-Rom Explorapedia builds lots of information into a package that is easily used (apart from the annoying number of clicks needed to get started). Cartoon scenes like the farmyard, lake and river are jumping off points for finding out more about various animals. The narration is in British and Irish children's voices.
On the down side, EasyBall's easiness may make the child less careful about controlling the cursor and inclined to click at random. But the combination of a useful controller and attractive program is hard to beat for value at £30.
By Fiachra O Marcaigh
Flight Simulator 98, Microsoft, £50
Over 10 million copies sold and 15 years in the air, says the manual - sorry, "pilot's handbook". Flight Simulator is a classic game whose roots go back to the early days of the IBMcompatible PC. In fact, PC lore has it that the ability to run Flight Simulator was used as the definitive test of a manufacturer's claim that a clone PC was "100 per cent compatible" with the IBM model in the mid-1980s.
So what's new? Three new aircraft (Bell JetRanger helicopter, Cessna Skylane RG and for the jaded corporate type a LearJet 45), clearer instrument panels and more airports and scenery for starters. You can take off from a good replica of Dublin Airport but flying south at 300 feet will not result in a messy encounter with Three Rock or the SugarLoaf. There are over 3,000 airports included, opening up the interesting possibility of sitting back on a (real) flight to Hawaii and rehearsing the manoeuvres the pilot will need to get you back on the ground.
The latest SideWinder Force Feedback joystick is supported - if you have one you can feel runway bumps and the shudder of a stalling plane - and a much better view out the window is available if you have a high-powered 3D video card. There is also a multi-player mode, with computers connected on a network, over the Internet or directly by modem.
With the emphasis on realism and learning, Flight Simulator is almost the opposite of easy-flying blast 'em ups like X-Wing. For anyone interested in flying it's seriously addictive though - even if the meanies have left out the handy instructor landing option when you're lumbering over Hong Kong in the 737. For this pilot, it has been the most engrossing game of 1997.
Programming Psion Computers, Leigh Edwards, EMCC, £29.95
It's hefty and has massive data storage on the included CDRom, so this book is almost the opposite of a Psion palmtop computer. One major reason for Psion's success (and one reason it's still well ahead of pocketable Windows CE devices) is that Psion computers are quite easy to program. There are thousands of freeware, shareware and commercial programs available for the Psions and if your special interest is not covered - say beecounting, or stone-wall construction - it is relatively easy to go and write one. Edwards's book is not aimed at the complete beginner, however. Rather than a tutorial approach, it provides a wide-ranging and authoritative reference for the commands and functions available for programming the range of Psion palmtops using OPL, C and C++, OVAL or assembly language. The command listings are clearly written and show at a glance which Psion models they apply to. There are also guidelines on which language to use and how to approach and structure major projects.
On the CD-Rom is a programmer's treasure-store of programs, utilities, code fragments and documentation. The author's note that "I have scoured all the key sources of programming related information and examples, added in some of my own and put them all together on disk" is no idle boast. Highly recommended.
Microsoft Encarta '98: Encyclopedia
Like the Beano Christmas Annual, Encarta '98 was prepared during the summer. Tony Blair's landslide, Ruud Gullit's Wembley success and even Mary Robinson's imminent departure to the UN are all featured but Mary McAleese was still a gleam in Bertie's eye and will have to wait for Encarta '99 or one of the monthly updates from the Web; three additional months up to October are downloadable at present.
Bang up-to-date or not, Encarta is still a brilliant and engaging product. The interactivities are great fun: learn about comets by setting your own to orbit the Earth elliptically or, even better, crash into it with a resounding thud; appreciate modern art by matching scenes from the eclectic masterpieces on view; amaze your friends by counting to three in Swahili or Zulu. If one wished to be fussy, the new 360-degree views of Piccadilly Circus and other beauty spots are tedious and unappealing and swapping between the two CDs is a pain (the Deluxe edition has three). There's nothing better for that school geography project though.
By Tom Moriarty
Photoshop in a Nutshell, Donnie O'Quinn & Matt LeClair, O'Reilly & Associates
If you think a Tiff is a mild altercation or a pixel is a mischievous elf then you're definitely in the wrong shop. This book is for those it terms "sophisticated users". Photoshop 4 is a powerful image editing tool with special effects filters, multiple layers, and various lighting effects. Those very features which make it popular for desktop image design and production also make it extremely complex.
This is a detailed reference book rather than a tutorial. It should help reduce time spent searching for just the right combination of filters and effects. Every tool, command, palette, dialogue box and sub-menu in Photoshop 4 is described in detail. Each one is accompanied by a list of its most common uses as well as misuses.
There are four main sections:
A detailed description of the contents of each item of Photoshop's toolbar.
All the menu commands and dialog boxes.
All of the palettes, as well as their basic functions and the significance of every value and palette submenu.
The fourth section covers common techniques, a comprehensive list of keyboard shortcuts and an explanation of the six resolution types referred to in the book.
The information is organised in a reference fashion with an index making any topic easy to find. A serious book for serious Photoshop 4 users, Photoshop in a Nutshell is a worthwhile guide.
By Michael Maguire O Marcaigh
The National Gallery of Ireland, A virtual tour of Ireland's art treasures, £15This CD-Rom centres on 100 of the National Gallery's most important pictures, including works by Yeats, Caravaggio, Breughel the Younger and Roderic O'Connor.In each case the painting is shown with a short audio commentary, plus the ability to zoom in on details or to follow stylistic or thematic links to other featured paintings. There are short biographies of the artists, plus a history of the gallery. A production like this is all about access: making the collection available to people who live far from the gallery - or allowing pupils, for example, to prepare for a school visit to it. In this it works well.In keeping with the need for accessibility, the minimum PC specification (it doesn't work on Macs) is low: a 33MHz 486 and only 110K of disk space, and the price is pretty accessible too. It would have been nice, though, to have had more information on each picture and artist, and (whatever about copyright considerations) a way for students to copy out text and images for use in projects. But the text is held as images - rather than as ASCII which could be copied into a word-processor. Intriguingly, too, the disk's subdirectories show copies of the audio files in Irish, but there's no option to play the disk in Irish. Nonetheless, this remains an attractive, easy-to-use production. Fiachra O Marcaigh