© 1994 Lawrence I. Charters
Washington Apple Pi Journal, Vol. 16, no. 8, August 1994, pp. 20-21.
Book reviews are supposed to be impersonal and objective, but by necessity this one will be personal, and with luck, objectivity will not suffer. This is not so much a promise, however, as a hope: they don’t call them “personal” computers for nothin’.
But first, a story. Once upon a time, while serving as president of a West Coast user group, I was accosted before a meeting by a woman weighing roughly 300 pounds and standing just a bit over five feet tall. She had a complex network of broken blood vessels in her face, and yellowed eyes, so the alcohol on her breath suggested a chronic problem. She also stank of tobacco. She had a demand:
“When are you going to let me talk about how computers can hurt people? Make them blind? Wreck their bones? Ruin their health? All because of radiation.”
She had been requesting, for months, “an hour or two” at a monthly meeting to talk about her self-published book on the subject of health and computers. I instantly decided on a high-level, presidential response to her request: I said “excuse me” and darted around her.
One of the other user group volunteers, witnessing this, suggested she might have a point: ”With all her other risk factors, why take chances on radiation?”
Which might well describe Don Seller’s approach in his book, Zap! How Your computer can hurt you and what you can do about it. This slender, heavily illustrated volume covers everything from eyestrain to headaches to pregnancy to muscle and skeletal strains. It also covers things which have nothing to do with computers directly, such as the quality of office air and how to spell periods of work with scheduled breaks.
Sellers is careful to present the controversial as well as the accepted. It is well accepted, for example, that you shouldn’t put your monitor in front of a window (the glare from the window will make the screen look dim and hard to see), or have a window directly behind you (the glare on the monitor will, again, make the screen look dim and hard to read).
Less accepted is the claim that extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic radiation may be harmful. Sellers mentions the concern without any bias at all, noting simply that the topic is “controversial.” Note, however, that most of his book is devoted to the known, rather than bogged down in the unproven.
There are a wealth of specific suggestions concerning how to set up your desk, what to look for in a chair, the pros and cons of different kinds of monitors, what kind of exercises to do when having a break from work, and even how to sit properly. The book is peppered with brand-names, and a “Where Else To Turn” chapter has company names and addresses, alternate sources of information, the names and addresses of organizations interested in the topics covered, and even the phone numbers of regional and national occupational health and safety agencies.
I have but two “complaints” about the book, both relatively minor. First, the index is weak. It is a decent index, compared to the competition, but let’s face it: most computer hooks have terrible indices. This book, in particular, could use a more fully annotated index.
The second complaint is one I share with roughly seven percent of all humanity: I did not see any specific mention of the needs of the left-handed. While Apple’s mouse is delightfully ambidextrous, many, if not most, manufacturers have right-hand-only mice and trackballs. Furniture manufacturers have similar biases; there are a numher of “computer workstations” that are all but useless to the left-handed. Because of their exceptional flexibility (not to mention intelligence and, of course, modesty), most left-handed computer users learn to adapt. But they don’t like it.
Should you get this hook? I can almost guarantee that the way your computer is set up at home violates many, if not most, of the guidelines given in the book. Your computer at work is probably set up a bit better, but there is an almost virtual certainty that things could be improved.
Consider this book an investment in yourself. If you are the boss, consider it an investment in your employees. If you are the owner of a business, consider it a means for cutting down on occupational health claims.
And for those of you who might have been wondering, no, I never did allow the woman to pitch her book to the user group. But if she’d written this book, I would have been far more interested.
Don Sellers, Zap! How your computer can hurt you –
Peachpit Press has a generous user group discount program, and even a one book order qualifies for a discount. To take advantage of this, call Peach pit at B00-2B3-9444, credit card in hand, and identify yourself as a member of Washington Apple Pi. Overseas callers should call 510-548-4393.