A person or animal afflicted with “learned helplessness,” Wikipedia helpfully tells us, “has come to believe that it has no control over its situation and that whatever it does is futile. As a result, the human being or the animal will stay passive in the face of an unpleasant, harmful or damaging situation, even when it does actually have the power to change its circumstances.”
Professors who say they can’t get technology to work the way they want it to might know this feeling all too well. In the latest edition of Tech Therapy, Warren Arbogast, a technology consultant, and Scott Carlson, a Chronicle reporter, talk about the “learned helplessness” that pervades technology use on campus.
