What your computer says about you

If you can tell a lot about a man from his shoes, then the computer he personalises with wallpaper, icons and his preferred software provides an even more telling snapshot of his psyche.

Profiling users from their PC desktop is an inexact science, but there’s no doubt that classical psychological profiles are reflected in computer use.

You could view an unconfigured computer system as being something like a Rorschach test

“You could view an unconfigured computer system as being something like a Rorschach test – the one where you show someone a blurry inkblot image and ask ‘what is that?’ – and make inferences about the person’s state of mind from their answers,” said Stephen Furner, a chartered psychologist working in technology.

“You choose the picture, the frames, the words spinning around in your screensaver. These are choices that an individual makes and that express an environment where they feel comfortable. It can say a lot about you.”

Desktop diagnosis

Identifying and classifying personality is a complicated process, relying on the so-called Big Five personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. All five can be reflected in our computing habits.

“People like things black and white, so in terms of something such as ‘openness’ you’re either inventive and curious or you’re consistent and cautious,” said Tom Stewart, a psychologist and chairman of usability and ergonomics consultant System Concepts. “Obviously everyone is somewhere in between the extremes of the Big Five categories, and these traits are easy to see in things such as a desktop.

“If there are icons all over the place, instead of in a neat and tidy fashion, the conscientiousness dimension is the one that applies – you have efficient and organised at one end, versus easy-going and careless at the other.

“If you have an untidy physical desk, pockets full of bits of paper and the house has stuff scattered everywhere, then your desktop is going to look the same – there will be icons everywhere and randomly saved files.”

According to a Microsoft-commissioned report, the desktop can reveal your attitudes or how you might cope under pressure, and could help employers to judge the mindset of workers. The study, by psychologist Donna Dawson, highlighted that having dozens of icons suggests disorganisation and possible insecurity, while photos and screensavers displaying past successes could be a sign of an ego that could grate on colleagues.

The way icons are distributed across the desktop can also uncover subconscious traits. A desktop configured with icons spread evenly on each side suggests the owner values balance and proportion, tends to keep a cool head under pressure and will be well organised, according to the Microsoft report.

And although too many icons can betray disorganisation, if they’re all used regularly they reveal an active personality that wants everything to hand and one that likes to be in control. Alternatively, they could simply be a sign that people don’t know how to add or delete desktop icons.

Some people’s desktops are a study in minimalism: a plain-blue screen with only the Recycle Bin on display. Apart from revealing that you’re perhaps private or introverted, there’s another explanation: people with barren start screens might simply prefer a list-based way of navigating their computers, claim experts, particularly those who are less inclined to “openness of experience” and prefer consistency over curiosity.

“Graphical interfaces are very visual and there’s this idea of the right-brain being more visual, big picture, and the left-brain being linguistic and analytical,” said Stewart. “We’re all quite good at recognising visual patterns, which is why GUIs are popular, but there are some people who are language-orientated, who would prefer to have an alphabetical list of things.”

Filing system

The way we deal with files extends this organisational insight, with a growing dichotomy between the original ideals of a logical, almost regimented, filing system conceived by computer scientists, and a more user-friendly, icon-based environment.

“Folders are an organisational tool invented by computer engineers who have different thinking patterns to non-engineers,” said Graham Jones, a consultant internet psychologist. “So the folder solution works very well for people who think in a logical, orderly, contextual way.”

“Some people with terribly untidy, shambolic offices know where every last scrap of information is located. Then in comes some ‘de-clutter’ expert who tidies it all up and the hapless worker can’t find things at all. It’s the same on computers; what is logical to one person isn’t at all sensible to another.”

It’s a concept that’s exemplified by early computer systems, where hierarchical file structures suffered from a cognitive mismatch.

“Somebody would set up a filing system based around their understanding of the area and their own personal categories, but it wouldn’t match up with the categories of people using it,” said Furner. “If you make a decision at a high level on a deep structure to turn left, it locks out a raft of options. If your understanding of category boundaries is different from the person who set it up, you might never find the files you’re looking for.”

Operating systems have grown more user friendly, with search functions removing the burden of remembering where that file was stashed, but old-school technicians remain suspicious of relying on search rather than methodical indexing.

“Improved search tools mean you can spend a lot less time organising file structures and you don’t have problems with cognitive mismatch, but you have a higher risk that perhaps you won’t find it and you won’t have a coherent understanding of the relationship between the item you were searching for and other similar information around it,” said Furner. “With a hierarchy you have to think about the relationship between information, so you have a more coherent understanding of your information space.”

Now with search engines it’s easier to keep things and let the search engine find it

On the other side of the equation are casual data hoarders, who often don’t even know if they want to store a file for long-term prosperity, and certainly don’t want to worry themselves with finding the right folder in which to store it. “One of the odd things about filing is that most of us never retrieve what we’ve filed. Some people, if they’re easy-going, outgoing extroverts, probably say: ‘I’m not going to need it, so I’ll bin it’,” said Stewart.

“If you do want to file something, the effort of labelling it or remembering where it is and putting it in the right place is quite big. You’re investing time in the future and it might never be repaid; now with search engines it’s easier to keep things and let the search engine find it.”

Does it matter how you store files? Well, anyone with 20 years of digital music garnered from CDs, friends, download stores and elsewhere will know what a nightmare it is organising poorly tagged and indexed files.

One psychologist discussed your correspondent’s appallingly jumbled music collection, where sometimes the best option is to leave My Music on random rather than find a specific track.

“You’re probably at the easy-going end of the scale in terms of being conscientious and possibly have strong openness traits, with the inventive-curious taking over from consistent-cautious,” said Stewart.

“That sort of behaviour shows an openness to new experience from random music. Some people like the radio because of that, whereas other people are fanatical about listening only to exactly what they want to listen to; they need to be more organised and tag things more accurately.”

Inbox insights

Even different tactics for managing email offer an insight into conscientiousness, which can have an impact on efficiency. For example, PC Pro’s editorial director, Tim Danton, aims to clear his inbox every night, filing away important messages into relevant folders. At the other end of the scale, your correspondent has 33,000 unread messages in his Gmail inbox alone.

What can we read into this? Certainly both systems work, and if Danton’s method might reveal a level of attentiveness that borders on compulsive, it has its advantages. “The idea of clearing your inbox at the end of the day strikes me as conscientiousness in the extreme – that’s really organised and self-disciplined, and not many people have the discipline to do that,” said Stewart.

Although the idea might seem anally retentive, it can actually declutter the mind. “There’s a lot to be said for having it near empty. The reason given by productivity experts is that it enables you to process things more quickly and to organise things more efficiently, and there’s a subtle psychological reason for this,” said Jones.

“When an inbox remains full (often with unanswered emails), it makes people perceive a pressure of work that isn’t true. They sense more work than they have, which makes them feel subconsciously under pressure, leading to coping mechanisms that mean they become less productive.”

Perhaps the email debate is an outward sign of the organisational and work-focused traits that see the super-organised Dantons move up in the world, while the confused and chaotic remain in more lowly roles.

But efficiency doesn’t always sit easily with the human psyche, and tools such as computer-based to-do lists can add to stress levels.

“One type of behaviour is what I call Post-it panic – you’ve got so many reminders staring you in the face that it isn’t good for productivity or creativity,” said Stewart. “Having very visible to-do lists can have the same effect, because while you’re trying to concentrate on one thing, part of your mind is focusing on what you need to do next.”

Whether you can deal with these feelings efficiently may depend on where you reside on the nervous-confident scale, as well as conscientious efficiency.

Fear factor

With antivirus and backup companies trying to sell their wares through scare tactics, it’s of little surprise that one of the Big Five personality traits – neuroticism – plays a large role, whether it’s the fear of visiting shadier parts of the web or choosing whether to pay for antivirus protection.

“Fear is a powerful motivator and that’s what the security companies clearly play on,” said Jones. “Fear of loss, however, isn’t as powerful a motivation as reward for gain. The carrot always wins over the stick. So the people who continually update their PCs with the latest patches are likely to be convinced by the gains they’ll receive more than what they’ll lose.”

However, most professional computer users’ biggest fear is data loss – a catastrophic hard disk failure, for example, is enough to send the most level-headed person into a sweaty lather, but the care-free computer owner is much more likely to suffer.

“With backups it’s a combination of things,” said Stewart. “If you’re very organised and conscientious then you back up because it’s the right thing to do. But if you’re neurotic, nervous or have a tendency to experience unpleasant emotions such as anger or vulnerability, you’ll be paranoid all the time, so that would make you back up all the time, too.”

With so many personality traits compelled to make backups, it makes you wonder why there’s any data loss at all…