<story><title>Workaholism leads to health problems, work addiction risk depends on occupation</title><url>https://www.hse.ru/en/news/research/433782660.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>laurent92</author><text>Now that you are not at the top, I can say it:&lt;p&gt;I have the theory that boys get into programming as a form of escapism – because the external world is frustrating to them. It is certainly my case, external world has all sorts of illogic demands, things that exist but should not be explicited, social rules, or various insults and condescension, some of them because we’re boys (my sister used to tell me boys have 13% fewer neurons, that’s why we’re stupid). So we talk to computers, although they can be extremely frustrating (I have spent hours at 7 years old finding the missing brackets — all of this in 1990 when I didn’t even speak English), but at least computers are logic. And they answer to us. They don’t make snarky comments. At least, when it fails, _it’s our fault_ . And we can fix it.&lt;p&gt;That would easily explain the gender gap in programming. It’s an escapism from the real world, while girls don’t need it as much because a lot of people are mindful of girls’ problems (notably teachers), or accept to listen to them.&lt;p&gt;I’d like to see an experiment: Give children 90% male teachers (the opposite of today’s ratio) and see whether programming then becomes more popular among girls than boys.</text></item><item><author>markus_zhang</author><text>I believe workaholists do not neccesarily love their job, but hate something else so much that they would rather find some place to take a bit of rest.&lt;p&gt;I think I&amp;#x27;m developing into one...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fraudsyndrome</author><text>I&amp;#x27;d add that there is some kind of toxic behaviour from men in my CS class. Think the typical 4channer type people. Obviously not all but when I had a chat with a couple of women from my class, they mentioned it was common to get hit on all the time during group projects when they were there to study and get talked down on as if they don&amp;#x27;t know what&amp;#x27;s going on.&lt;p&gt;I see similar behaviours to how men sometimes &amp;quot;gatekeep&amp;quot; games or even anything computer related. It&amp;#x27;s quite common to hear of stories women face on online games when they open their mic.&lt;p&gt;Is there a chance they&amp;#x27;d avoid it based on the type of people they might face? Maybe.</text></comment>
<story><title>Workaholism leads to health problems, work addiction risk depends on occupation</title><url>https://www.hse.ru/en/news/research/433782660.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>laurent92</author><text>Now that you are not at the top, I can say it:&lt;p&gt;I have the theory that boys get into programming as a form of escapism – because the external world is frustrating to them. It is certainly my case, external world has all sorts of illogic demands, things that exist but should not be explicited, social rules, or various insults and condescension, some of them because we’re boys (my sister used to tell me boys have 13% fewer neurons, that’s why we’re stupid). So we talk to computers, although they can be extremely frustrating (I have spent hours at 7 years old finding the missing brackets — all of this in 1990 when I didn’t even speak English), but at least computers are logic. And they answer to us. They don’t make snarky comments. At least, when it fails, _it’s our fault_ . And we can fix it.&lt;p&gt;That would easily explain the gender gap in programming. It’s an escapism from the real world, while girls don’t need it as much because a lot of people are mindful of girls’ problems (notably teachers), or accept to listen to them.&lt;p&gt;I’d like to see an experiment: Give children 90% male teachers (the opposite of today’s ratio) and see whether programming then becomes more popular among girls than boys.</text></item><item><author>markus_zhang</author><text>I believe workaholists do not neccesarily love their job, but hate something else so much that they would rather find some place to take a bit of rest.&lt;p&gt;I think I&amp;#x27;m developing into one...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Izkata</author><text>&amp;gt; They don’t make snarky comments. At least, when it fails, _it’s our fault_ . And we can fix it.&lt;p&gt;Certainly not alone here, this is almost the same as part of the Hacker&amp;#x27;s Manifesto:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I made a discovery today.  I found a computer.  Wait a second, this is&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; cool.  It does what I want it to.  If it makes a mistake, it&amp;#x27;s because I&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; screwed it up.  Not because it doesn&amp;#x27;t like me...&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;                Or feels threatened by me...&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;                Or thinks I&amp;#x27;m a smart ass...&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;                Or doesn&amp;#x27;t like teaching and shouldn&amp;#x27;t be here...&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;phrack.org&amp;#x2F;issues&amp;#x2F;7&amp;#x2F;3.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;phrack.org&amp;#x2F;issues&amp;#x2F;7&amp;#x2F;3.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;...this part of which also rang true to me throughout school.</text></comment>