"Mouse Rage" New Online Shopping Peril

You know something's hit the mainstream when an expert comes along and starts studying and naming phenomena associated with it. Online shopping continues to gain momentum, so of course there was a study. In this case, the study was commissioned by RackSpace Managed Hosting, and it found that shopping online is no panacea -- it can can be extremely stressful, leading to what they call "Mouse Rage."

The study finds that "Mouse Rage" is brought on by the effort of finding and arranging for the delivery of gifts, especially through -- wait for it -- badly hosted websites. Slow, badly designed websites are also (even those that are on good hosts, I presume) are also problematic, leading to things like bashing the mouse and cursing the screen. (Hey, I get that from dealing with Windows every day.)

My skepticism meter went off the scale when I first saw the words "Mouse Rage," and the top five site flaws that lead to this supposed condition are things that reputable online retailers have been avoiding for years. Even apart from all that, and even if this were really such a health risk, surely the authors of the study realize that annoyed online shoppers can simply relax by switching to a game of Zuma or leaving the computer for a while, and continuing later -- something you can't do quite as easily at the mall.