Ever want to throw your PC out the window because it was taking too long to load a website? You’re not alone. A global survey commissioned by storage device maker SanDisk found that 14% of American respondents have taken their frustrations out on a gadget, while 27% have lost sleep due to slow computer performance. The survey also found the average American has lost 119 hours of free time to computer-related delays in the past 12 months. That’s almost five days a year of your life lost because your computer was stalling.
The June 2013 study of more than 8,000 PC users from around the world found that the frustration caused by inefficient devices could put a quarter of American respondents in a bad mood for the rest of the day. Oddly enough, despite mobile Internet speeds still lagging behind ethernet or Wi-Fi connections at home or the office, 53% of Americans polled said the computer they use at home or work is the device that annoys them the most due to wasted time. Only 22% said their mobile phone caused the same grief.
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Americans also spent 2.34 days a year on average waiting for files to transfer, and respondents aged 55 and older reacted most calmly to the delays, with 42% saying that waiting for a computer to start caused no stress at all (compared to the 32% average for all respondents).
Among the other countries surveyed, German respondents were more likely (23%) to physically abuse their gadgets in frustration, while Chinese respondents (37%) more likely had their moods dampened from digital down-time. To ease your frustrations, SanDisk recommends, not surprisingly, upgrading the hard drive in your computer to a solid state drive (SSD) to increase its speed.
I’ve been using cable Internet since 1999, but I’ll never forget the excitement of dial-up Internet. Barring a broadband apocalypse, my son will be able to count on boringly consistent connectivity throughout his life. Dial-up was like a box of chocolates; you never knew what you were going to get.
Listening to the modem dial was like watching a croupier spin the roulette wheel. I’d hold my breath as it punched the final number. Would I get a busy signal, or would it just keep ringing until I hit the cancel button and tried again? Even when my ISP’s modem picked up, I was on pins and needles for at least 30 seconds while I heard the familiar “boing, boing, bing” of its handshaking process. In the end, I could come out a winner with a speedy 56K connection, or take the penny prize with a 14.4 Kbps rate that took 10 minutes to download a single photo.
Image: Flickr, Amelia Clarke
This article originally published at LAPTOP Magazine here
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