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posted by martyb on Friday June 19 2020, @09:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the only-the-lonely-can-play-♫♫ dept.

Tech and social media are making us feel lonelier than ever:

You've had a social day. Two hundred Facebook friends posted birthday messages, your video of Mr. Meow shredding the toilet paper stash got dozens of retweets, and all the compliments on your latest Instagram selfie have you strutting with an extra swagger. Still, you can't help but notice an ache that can only be described as loneliness.

That we feel this way even when hyperconnected might seem like a contradiction. But the facts are clear: Constant virtual connections can often amplify the feeling of loneliness.

"Internet-related technologies are great at giving us the perception of connectedness," says Dr. Elias Aboujaoude, a Stanford University psychiatrist who's written about the intersection of psychology and tech. The truth, he says, is the time and energy spent on social media's countless connections may be happening at the expense of more rooted, genuinely supportive and truly close relationships.

If virtual socializing cannot substitute for the real thing, will social media prove out to be nothing more than a fad of the late 20th and early 21st centuries?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @03:21PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @03:21PM (#1010071)

    What about jobs that are removed due to automation?... If the human race manages not to wipe itself out, in another two generations you won't need a person to drive a car or truck, maintain landscaping, collect trash, deliver packages, clean hotel rooms or do most other forms of housekeeping, or prepare most forms of food.

    Kill all Boomers. Oh... wait...
    I know. Kill all Milleni... Errrr... wut?
    I don't know, I give up. Ask aristarchus.

    The only other alternative is some kind of Luddite attack on automation, and that would be a colossal waste of resources.

    Well, maybe we were always at war with Eastasia? Waste of resources or not, if the resources are cheap, nothing like keeping the population busy by the constant destruction of what is created.

  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday June 19 2020, @06:22PM (1 child)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Friday June 19 2020, @06:22PM (#1010135) Journal

    I don't know, I give up. Ask aristarchus.

    Don't ask me, ask Confucius:

    [12-19] 季康子問政於孔子曰。如殺無道、以就有道、何如 孔子對曰。子爲政、焉用殺 子欲善、而民善矣。君子之德風。小人之德草。草上之風必偃。

    Analects, 12:19 [acmuller.net], Mulller, trans.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @10:18PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @10:18PM (#1010186)

      Don't ask me, ask Confucius:

      I can't. We've always been at war with eastasia.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @09:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @09:35PM (#1010184)

    I don't know that the people in power are intentionally causing wars to create jobs. I think they're simply doing it because they have friends in the petroleum and military equipment and munitions industries. But yes, it creates makework jobs - more oil, more military equipment, more ammunition, and of course more jobs for soldiers and their medical care.