Why a WiFi Failure Makes you Angry And What it Says About You

Do you get angry when your WiFi connection stops working? It could be because of your personality, says a research

Do you get frustrated and angry when your WiFi connection stops working? It could be because of your personality, says a research.

The study, published in the journal Heliyon, showed that when digital technology stops working, people with a fear of missing out (FOMO) — the anxiety of missing out on a social experience that others might be having — display more extreme reactions.

People who were seen as being more neurotic and extroverted also had more extreme reactions to failures in digital technology.

Extroversion, neuroticism, the fear of missing out and internet addiction — all have a significantly positive influence on ‘maladaptive responses’. This means that the people most psychologically dependent on digital technology are most likely to have maladaptive responses when it goes wrong.

These maladaptive responses are not only unhelpful; they also have a detrimental impact on productivity and achieving goals, thereby resulting in poor job performance, say researchers.

However, the study found that as age increases, the level of frustration a person experiences also decreases. The team had examined 630 participants aged 18 to 68 for the study.

The more we use our devices, the more we get attached to them, so when they do not work, we tend to just go a little bit ‘crazy’ or just switch off and stop doing things altogether

Lee Hadlington, psychologist at the De Montfort University and lead researcher of the study

"If we can understand what leads individuals to react in certain ways, and why these differences occur, we can hopefully make sure that when digital technology does fail, people are better supported and there are relevant signposts for them to follow to get help," Hadlington believes.