International Journal of
Information and Education Technology

Abstract

If there is a defining condition of the modern age, it is undoubtedly the unbridled faith our culture has in the power of technology to provide a panacea for virtually all our problems, be they technological problems or not. Western culture's unreserved commitment to the importance of what we shall call "classroom computechnology" represents one facet of this almost religious-like faith in technology. In this paper we shall argue that the ever burgeoning cultural preoccupation with computechnology has become so socially entrenched that the psychology and behaviour it engenders represent a syndrome in its own right, which in this case we have identified as the "compuphilia paradox". The term compuphilia is intended to convey the sense of an individual’s (or of a culture’s) infatuation with computechnology that is so extreme and addictive that the justification for its habitual use has become perilously uncritical and emotively mesmerising.