Move over, BlackBerry thumb: Mouse Rage Syndrome is the hot new geek ailment

Anyone who's ever used a web browser for more than five minutes knows the crippling frustration that can result from bad site design, slow load times, and worst of all, the dreaded 404. And unless you're an individual of Gandhi-like patience and restraint -- which we most certainly are not -- you've probably found yourself physically abusing your pricey hardware on more than one occasion; whomever invented the wireless mouse didn't take into account how convenient the little rodents are to hurl across the room. Well you may have thought that pounding your keyboard, kicking your desktop, or spitting at your monitor (we're guilty, guilty, and unfortunately, guilty) made you some kind of rageaholic, so you'll be relieved to learn of a recent study that suggests you're far from alone on this one; in fact, so many of the 2,500 test subjects exhibited profuse sweating, rapid heartbeat, and uncontrollable screaming when presented with craptastic web pages, that researchers from the UK's Social Issues Research Centre even gave the phenomenon a name: Mouse Rage Syndrome. Normally we'd write off such "ailments" as silly pseudoscience -- after all, we were able to wait several minutes for pages to load back in the old dial-up days without going all postal on our rigs -- but apparently the symptoms of MRS can lead to lasting physical effects in terms of cardio, nervous, and immune system functionality. Not very surprisingly, the study was commissioned by Rackspace Managed Hosting, whose managing director warns that "businesses need to provide simple and easy-to-navigate layouts, whilst focusing on speed and uptime" in order to minimize incidents of MRS among their customers. Now, how in the world could a company possibly achieve such lofty goals? We're not totally sure, but we'll bet that the good folks at Rackspace Managed Hosting have a few ideas....

[disciple83 @ Dec 20th 2006 4:40PM]

It troubles me greatly to hear that more people are becoming enraged over stupid stuff like having to wait for a web page to load or even lag spikes in video games. I'm gonna go with Evan on this and remind the public of all the waiting we used to do with dial-up connections. I am truly grateful for the increase in bandwidth over the years. I play games online, and believe me when I say that it is sometimes scary to find a user with latency ratings below 30, and at the same time also scary to see that Mr. 30-ping is bitching because he is "laggy". I find that unbelievably fast when it wasn't more than 7 years ago that most people would be supremely happy with a 350 ping. With speeds like that, I think it is fairly safe to say that the lag isn't coming from the internet connection, but the computer. Maybe if Mr. 30-ping complains to their Mommy or Daddy, they will buy them a new for the moment computer.

In all honesty though, people should learn to get a grip. The majority of web page timeouts are at the host server level, and there is nothing the user can do about it. Why bitch and complain and throw a fit?

[john russell @ Dec 20th 2006 4:55PM]

One thing that angers me is when people on the web use substandard grammar and punctuation. For example, the 'whomever' used in the second sentence should be 'whoever' as it is the subjective pronoun. Also, we use computers these days, not typewriters. The double hyphen worked then, but now we can actually type these little characters called em dashes—use them!

[end rant]

[David @ Dec 20th 2006 4:59PM]

Don't just blame the internet, there's lots of crappy software out there that millions of us are forced to use for one reason or another. There's a nice little dent in the drywall next to my desk at work due to a late night program crash. It's a monument to crappy software/internet design everywhere.

[TC Sparks @ Dec 20th 2006 5:02PM]

Hmmmm...sometimes it seems like Engadget runs slow and cloggy...

[Chocolate Starfish @ Dec 20th 2006 5:22PM]

Maybe now someone will take a good long look at the layout of the Weblogics template...

[Ken @ Dec 20th 2006 5:44PM]

I'm 100% guilty of this, but it's not my fault. I work with Autodesk software and, frankly, it's programmed by idiots.

[Silver R. Wolfe @ Dec 20th 2006 7:02PM]

Wow, didn't know this was a common reaction to the dreaded 404.

I usually just busy myself with something else while I wait for a slow page to load. Tis why my PS2 is right next to my computer.

[Joe Smith @ Dec 20th 2006 7:59PM]

all because of apple

[Diddle @ Dec 20th 2006 8:26PM]

Kudos for working the word "craptastic" into a post. Next up: "craptacular". ;)

[nikster @ Dec 20th 2006 9:43PM]

The only thing I am wondering is... how did Engadget get a link for "Menopausal Syndrome" on this page? Are you sure that's the target demographic?

[John Doe @ Dec 20th 2006 10:20PM]

Most pages load faster if you get an adblocker

[Anthony @ Dec 20th 2006 10:24PM]

my wireless mouse has definitely been my stress relieving device

i'm surprised i don't go through more of them

[whiskey @ Dec 21st 2006 1:34AM]

All i can say is: Remember that "get your cordless optical mouse inside a light green, possibly yellow, fuzzy ball to use it by rotating it's innards"? Not such a good idea now right?

[Hoyt L Kesterson II @ Dec 21st 2006 5:16PM]

What a great illustration! Where did you get it? I would like to use it (and others from the same artists) in my presentations