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In his 1998 book, The Invisible Computer, Donald Norman, a former executive at both Hewlett-Packard and Apple Computer, blasted the personal computer as "perhaps the most frustrating technology ever." That may sound kind of harsh. But according to a U.S. News poll, quite a few Americans seem to share his sentiment.

The poll of 1,000 adults found that 62 percent of the respondents owned personal computers, a considerably higher percentage than the 50 percent set by most surveys. The findings suggest that a strong 71 percent majority of Americans with PCs are still only on their first- or second-generation machines.

Surf city. The No. 1 use of the PC among adults, respondents said, was writing and sending E-mail (26 percent), scouring the Internet for information (24 percent), and word processing (20 percent.) That suggests that most grown-ups (manufacturers, please take note) are not using anywhere near the full power that their computers offer. Teenagers, however, seem to be taking advantage of their machine's horsepower--32 percent of them cite game playing as the the main thing they do on their home PCs.

The level of frustration became evident when U.S. News asked whether respondents were considering upgrading their machines. A resounding 62 percent said "No." One reason cited is that 83 percent of these users worry that whatever they buy, it will become obsolete in a relatively short period of time.

So what exactly is driving computer users batty? The biggest factor was that machines were too slow (31 percent). Other gripes included the quality of technical support (15 percent), inadequate or confusing instruction manuals (14 percent), not enough memory (7 percent), software that's too complicated (5 percent), and difficulty of operation (3 percent). For almost any other industry, such as auto- mobiles or air travel, that level of dissatisfaction would inevitably create a huge backlash.

For households that don't own computers, the question we posed was "Why not?" The top reason was simply "not interested" (53 percent); that was followed by complexity (23 percent), hassles making purchasing decisions (19 percent), and fear of technology (12 percent).

Very few respondents expressed any interest in buying the next generation of simple handheld products that combine phone and Internet functions. Only 23 percent said they would be interested in purchasing such a device versus 72 percent who said "No." Clearly, manufacturers face a huge marketing effort if they are ever going to convince Americans that an era of simple, anytime, anywhere Internet access is at hand.