When computer scientists are done with nerding out over code and HTML scripts and dashboards, do you know what they’re looking at? People! And not just people aching for programme so that they can get a Deliveroo’s worth of food fed into their mouths without even opening them because they’re just that lazy, but people who are going through break-ups.
Yes, computer scientists - in this case, Dr. Sas from Lancaster University - want to look into the physical loss experienced by not just going through a break-up, but being unable to physically destroy all memory of your ex.
In the good old days, an ex would be torn out of a photo, their love letters burned or chucked down the toilet. In today’s more paper-conscious and digitally-driven world, where hand-writing is ugly enough to be a dump-able offence and film processing costs more than a cheap date, we get rid of exes by deleting - or, let’s face it, blocking - them on Facebook. We might also delete a few Instagram photos and un-favourite some Tweets. But that’s all online.
Dr Corina Sas, who spoke to psychotherapists and patients for the paper ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, said: ‘Just pressing the delete button is very unsatisfactory’.
One patient tore up a letter and picture from and of an ex, threw the pieces of paper down the toilet then weed on them, reports The Times. Dr Sas says this sort of process is important, and notes that ‘Most of these rituals happen with open hands, the artefact moves away - gets in the water, the air’. She also notes that computers and other digital devices don’t give us the physical satisfaction of catharsis we crave when trying to destroy tangible memories of an ex.
Dr Sas wants to take the satisfying tingle of chucking an ex’s physical artefacts and combine it with the speedy efficacy (and lack of burning smells) a digital destruction can provide. ‘When you are really angry you tear a letter apart. For that kind of disposal we were thinking of ways to let you use force. For example, maybe have a crystal ball with pictures projected on to the side. As you start shaking it they erode. The more you shake it, the more the picture fragments in front of your eyes’
After a break-up, when you’re so conscious someone is trying to remove you from their memory as much as you’re trying to remove them, it’s important to validate your own existence. If a crystal ball can help, then Dr Sas needs to get to work. Let’s just hope she doesn’t make her notes on a crystal ball, though…
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.