Will BL

Why do you use the computer?

Though my job is to write code, I study computer science, and I sometimes write code in my free time, I sometimes think that there might be too much computing going in the world. That made me think about what motivations we actually have for using the computer.

Why use the computer? #

I won't be considering motivations like "to do my job". We're only looking for reasons why you might want to use the computer, not need to.

Customise #

One motivation for using the computer is simply enjoyment of making the computer your own. This kind of motivation causes people to create things like riced linux installations, perfectly organised nix configs, and custom Android ROMs. I understand the appeal enough to have dabbled in these things myself: it's the appeal of building yourself a specialised workshop and toolbox.

Code #

Another motivation is for the appreciation of code. This makes people produce things like Advent of Code solutions in strange languages, libraries with high levels of abstraction, and re-implementations of things in Rust. I understand the appeal of this, too - well-written code can have a real elegance and beauty to it.

Create #

Another motivation is to create a piece of art. If you're propelled by this motivation, the computer itself may be entirely incidental - it is the tool you use to produce your end result (whether that be demos, games, music, or anything else), and you enjoy using it for that, but you are less likely to spend hours considering different languages or customising your desktop environment.

Communicate and Consume #

Two other motivations for using the computer are important, though somewhat different. Firstly, sometimes you use the computer to communicate with others - the C in ICT. Secondly, sometimes you use the computer to consume content. These are probably the two motivations I have for using the computer most often.

My motivations #

Recently, I have found the first two motivations waning for me. If I'm to use the computer recreationally, it's always to either make something I want to see exist (such as writing this post), or to talk to a friend, or to mindlessly scroll Reels. While the final motivation is probably bad, the other two are probably good. What I find particularly insidious about the mindless Consume motivation is that it often disguises itself as the Communication motivation. I open Instagram because its inbuilt messenger is my main way of communicating with many of my friends. I open Twitter because somebody linked me a funny tweet.

However, I think for some the motivations to not use the computer is just as important. If you don't give yourself motivation to not use the computer, you may be using it more than necessary.

Why use the computer when you can not? #

If what you're doing can be done just as well without the computer, it might be better not to. For a year I wrote study notes in a Microsoft Office clone. Then the next year I wrote them all in markdown with embedded LaTeX, converting to PDF with pandoc. Then I moved to Obsidian, obsessing over making correct links between each note to produce that perfect graph (This being all mostly a product of the Customise and Code motivations, I think).

After a year and a half of that, I just started writing notes on paper instead. No digitisation, no standardisation. Just write stuff down. For me, that worked much better - I can write anywhere on the page, I can incorporate little doodles or illustrations of concepts, it's just so much easier. Of course, for anything long-form like essays, a computer works better for me - I'm not saying we should do away with computers - but check if everything you use the computer for really needs it. Just because the computer can do a lot of things doesn't mean it should.

Similarly, other than for select few applications (less than half a dozen), nothing will send me a notification on my phone. I'm unlikely to order something from my phone at a restaurant or pub if I can instead do it from one of their machines or by talking to an actual person. Why use the computer when you can not?

Thoughts by other people #

These tweets by Omar Rizwan perfectly describes the Create and Communicate motivations to me. It also touches on how maybe the computer should only be used for things that can't be done without it.

anyway, the whole point of using a computer is so that you can control a GPU which then controls a high-resolution bitmap display, and/or so that you can send packets over the internet to your friends in other cities

hard to do that stuff by hand

These quotes from Rasmus Lerdorf (of PHP fame) (via wikiquote) to me perfectly show how a person with the Create motivation programs.

I actually hate programming, but I love solving problems.

I really don't like programming. I built this tool to program less so that I could just reuse code.

PHP is about as exciting as your toothbrush. You use it every day, it does the job, it is a simple tool, so what? Who would want to read about toothbrushes?

Some of these quotes are from his talk PHP on Hormones, in which he also talks about the different motivations programmers have. It's definitely a good listen!

These tweets by @stylewarning were what made me start thinking about the different motivations for using the computer:

i'm convinced some people go into programming to express things (à la art), to discover things (à la science), or to solve things (à la engineering), and these are the roots of philosophical divides between languages, priorities, working relationships, and value judgments

we fool ourselves into an equation of programming with engineering ("software engineering"), and that has any number of effects, including career dysphoria for some

Another tweet on divides in programming, which is adjacent to the motivations divide:

there’s a dichotomy in computer science that happens to correlate strongly with the academy/industry divide and once you learn how to see it, it’s a perfect lens to explain the world. and it’s “does your program do data processing or does it do i/o”

[...] the real world only cares about doing i/o [...]

A Bluesky Post by @chetsucks.com makes a very relatable statement rejecting the Customise and Code motivations in favour Create:

I appreciate people honestly suggesting Linux but…

Spending one second of my life wondering - is this an issue because it’s running Linux?

No

I remove anxiety from my life.

I hate technology.

This is all just a tool for me to use to create outputs, I have no fascination with the machinery.

Computers - A Review. Something is wrong with the Computer. Never has there been an Object so gazed upon with wonder. so tinkered and toyed with, or with such Utility! But the Computer is sick. We have given the Computer, through mechanical implements, memories to pore over. eyes to see. ears to listen. mouths to speak. and a mind to lord over these plastic organs. It would seem we have made it like us - an invitation to join our life of dreaming. to look at the Moon with its plastic eyes and feel the wonder we feel. But the invitation remains unaccepted. And soon you will see that after years of staring into this Box, you forget the wonder of the Moon, yourselves. In trying to turn Computer into Man, you have only turned Men into Computers. Suddenly you stop looking people in the eye when you talk, make strange noises reminiscent of beeping. May the sky one day be held aloft by a thousand pillars of black smoke from a thousand pyres of Every Computer in the World. and around each. people laughing. it got Microsoft Excel tho. five stars