If you are in humanities academia, you likely notice a strong preference for Mac computing among your colleagues. Driving this phenomenon is at least in part the desire for the identity of a Mac user vs the identity of a PC user. Through advertising and branding, a Mac is perceived as a subversive rebel in the face of "the man," or in academic terms, "the dominant ideology," the PC. Counting all computer users, Mac users are truly in the minority. Still, I have sometimes found this configuration of PC vs. Mac in the popular imagination ironic because of the DIY possibilities available for modifying a PC, most of which are much more difficult, or impossible, to apply to a Mac. To me, DIY-ness adds subversiveness.
A new Slate article by Tim Wu elucidates this topic and sheds light on how Apple has traveled the spectrum from its first and extremely DIY-friendly computer to the Ipad, an antithesis to DIY computing.
Still, I'm sure folks have already begun to mod the Ipad.
And, let me not fail to note that if you are a non-Mac user but you use Linux, you are awarded double street-cred points within the academic milieu.
A Pedagogical Response to the Aurora Shootings: 10 Critical Questions about
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The horrifying and tragic news of the shooting in Aurora, Colorado this
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Word. Have you also noticed Apples tend to have debilitating hardware problems - if problems arise at all? I suspect this preference may have something to do with the fear humanities professors may have towards tackling computer problems.
ReplyDeleteA professor and friend once spoke of the anxiety she had from switching platforms - from PC to Mac - because she felt inadequately able to deal with software/hardware problems she had with her PC. Since the switch she has praised her Apple desktop, and I suspect that is because she hasn't made any calls to the IT department.
I have noticed that as well. As the "tech guy" in my social circle, I am often the first person my friends (also mostly academics) talk to when they have computing problems whether on a PC or on a Mac. In particular, my friends' Mac laptops fail irreparably with these debilitating hardware problems you speak of much more often than my friends' PC laptops do. I guess in this case a counterargument might be that the Mac laptops have integrated themselves in my friends' lives so well that they suffer more wear and tear from being carried around everywhere. However, my PC using friends seem to carry their laptops around just as much.
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