Do you think there has been many suicides due to technological change?

[Sakura94]

The way new technology interferes with life which ultimately alters you as a person too as routines change and older tech is replaced.

 

[Versailles]

The way new technology interferes with life which ultimately alters you as a person too as routines change and older tech is replaced.

Well, I could mention that today's technology facilitates an immense amount of things, which in turn makes me feel a sense of emptiness, I don't know who else feels that way

 

[Sakura94]

Well, I could mention that today's technology facilitates an immense amount of things, which in turn makes me feel a sense of emptiness, I don't know who else feels that way

I recall yonks ago there was a woman who killed herself because she didn't want to learn email for work. (Can't find the article anymore.) I thought it was odd at the time but I sort of get it now. Being older her mind would have been far different and alien to my own. Today's tech, especially the machine learning stuff honestly makes me feel ill most of the time.
Everyone seems to carry on as normal though, accepting it for the most part.

 

[Well-Edited Chaos]

I absolutely 100% think there have been suicides b/c of tech. I think they've been hidden a little bit b/c so many of them are middle-aged men without post-secondary education, a group which (I believe) has a disproportionately high suicide rate already.

I absolutely 100% think there have been suicides b/c of tech. I think they've been hidden a little bit b/c so many of them are middle-aged men without post-secondary education, a group which (I believe) has a disproportionately high suicide rate already.

I forgot to mention, if I CTB it'll be in part b/c of homelessness & poverty, due to job loss, due to not keeping up w/ tech change, due to feeling overwhelmed with the amount and speed of said tech change and not knowing where to best direct my time / efforts / $$.

 

[katara]

Ya definitely, not in the 5G/Qanon conspiracy kind of way. But yes I think technology has ruined some people's lives. Being exposed to certain things as a kid has it's consequences, and sense most of us had a computer growing up, there's certain things we were exposed to that otherwise we wouldn't have been. I remember making a Facebook for the first time when I was 11 because I thought it would help me make friends. I always felt I had an issue fitting in and i thought social media would help but unfortunately most people I talked to ending up moving on and not keeping in touch. The censorship online is pretty annoying, like how social media sites allow literal pedophilia and porn but yet they censor jokes and certain cuss words because words are "offensive".
But I think the theory the internet has given people mental illness is exaggerated. If you've ever been on tiktok and seen all those videos from people with shitty dyed hair and made up pronouns claiming they all have depression, anxiety, Tourette's, suicidal thoughts, and DID, etc. its obvious these people are just making that shit up for attention, I think the people who constantly talk about how we should "remove the stigma behind mental health" are actually the ones creating the stigma. Making schizophrenia and being suicidal cool trendy things to label yourself as is fucking stupid and disgusting.
I guess u could say me seeing all of this has made me more depressed because of how stupid people are.

 

[Smart No More]

People's jobs have been taken by technology way before the internet was around and there were suicides as a result of that so it is definitely something that happened and happens. When automated robots came in to make cars many people committed suicide due to job losses and this is an ongoing issue in all industry.

 

[befree]

It´s not the main reason, but also those changes make the world more unpleasant and make people digital slaves.

Examples:
5G, chemtrails, HAARP, RFID-technology / NFC-technology, contactless payment (I pay in cash when ever possible), smartphones (I refuse to buy one!), smart meter, smart TV (I don´t have a TV), smart cities, face ID, digital currencies (I never use them), automated data comparison / data transmission, QR-codes, fingerprint sensor, digital travel tickets, digital vaccination certificate (I have no vaccinations at all), social media (I don´t use them).

 

[DynamicDepression]

I think technological change is a factor for many people, even if merely an unconscious one.

Thanks to the internet and smart devices, we have access to nearly all of humanity's knowledge at our fingertips, yet instead of people getting smarter and more knowledgeable about how the world works, we got conspiracy theorists claiming that all our scientific understanding is false because it doesn't attune to their worldview. All of this coupled with algorithm-powered echo chambers and the relative anonymity of the internet, the ugliness of human nature has been amplified. These aren't just some guys with tin foil hats, but mainstream politicians and their followers. For example, instead of debating on what the best course of action would be to minimize the spread of Covid-19, we had millions of debates on whether the virus even existed. That's terrifying to me and one of the reasons why I don't want to be around much longer.

On a more personal level, the development of language models like GPT-3 and the general public's algorithmic tastes mean my dreams of becoming a career writer were crushed. Naturally, this has a bearing on my suicidality as my one talent now has no value.

 

[Darkover]

social media increase suicide
There is substantial evidence that the Internet and social media can influence suicide-related behavior. Such evidence includes an increase ofcyberbullying to occur. Over the past ten years, cyberbullying has increasingly led to self-harm and suicide.

Is there a correlation between suicide and social media?
Current evidence suggests that excessive or 'problematic' use of social media/internet does impact suicide risk, specifically increasing the risk of suicide attempts.

 

[obafgkm]

The way new technology interferes with life which ultimately alters you as a person too as routines change and older tech is replaced.

Technology makes people live longer. Things like medicine, seat belt, air bag make people live like in a green house with little threat. Many people should have died long ago. More people but machine has already taken over most routine but previously meaningful tasks, like factory work, farming. To stay within the power structure people have to create new jobs and new weird things to do. In some places, they keep idle people busy by building ghost towns. In other places they have a things called social media in which people dance and do funny things in front of the camera. For those who don't like any of these and can't find a place in the power structure they just want to quit.

 

[Lost Magic]

It is harder than ever to keep up with technology because AI is virtually replacing us. Privacy is becoming a thing of the past. We are just slaves to the tech giants now. It's a shame because if you look at ideas like The Venus Project we could be using the wonders of technology to all our advantages. So long as we have a Capitalist system based on Neoliberal politics, I don't see much improving.

 

[Sakura94]

Thanks for the sui fuel everyone.

we got conspiracy theorists claiming that all our scientific understanding is false because it doesn't attune to their worldview. All of this coupled with algorithm-powered echo chambers and the relative anonymity of the internet, the ugliness of human nature has been amplified. These aren't just some guys with tin foil hats, but mainstream politicians and their followers

My personal opinion is this is not accidental. Big tech have everyone's data, billions of dollars at their disposal and Alphabet will even shed much of it to accumulate more, they know everything and knowledge is power.

The opposing side can only react by making things up and create new information that they can claim ownership of to combat their accumulated intelligence. They know the stuff they spread is nonsense but will do so anyway. It's like when your someone is stronger than you . They might spread slander and make various things up about you hoping it will stick. It is always at the expense of minorities but attempting to take down the other side.

On a more personal level, the development of language models like GPT-3 and the general public's algorithmic tastes mean my dreams of becoming a career writer were crushed. Naturally, this has a bearing on my suicidality as my one talent now has no value.

I saw that coming a long time ago but only because I think of the near future a lot for my writing. I have numerous disabilities and look awful so I saw my creativity as a way of moving past my physical body. It is naïve anyway though when you understand how computers work and even just being able to use this website means unfathomable calculations so far removed from human experience we don't consider it.

There is zero reason for me to exist and I won't mean anything to anyone. It's hard for me to accept but is the truth.

"remove the stigma behind mental health" are actually the ones creating the stigma.

I tend not to like the term mental for anything. Though inspection of the physical body itself is being removed by machine learning as ML can spot things before doctors can and sometimes without explanation. I think psychology will vanish in time though. It's not something that will persist as science prefers accuracy and information is cheap. I do think a lot of mental ailments are possibly by the structure of society currently. There is some philosophy of the meek taking over the earth as tech increases but I don't really see it.