Alienation as an explanation of computer user attitudes

The social psychological phenomenon of alienation has been used to explain feelings of separation and estrangement with our increasingly technological society since it was first proposed by Marx. The present study represents an application of the theory of alienation to the attitudes of computer users in an attempt to explain their feelings, especially negative feelings, which have heretofore been vaguely referred to as ‘frustration’, ‘dissatisfaction’, etc. The results is a systematic decomposition of these attitudes into various components of alienation which are consistent with the already well-established theory of alienation.