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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?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Saturday June 20 2020, @03:00PM (1 child)
borrow a sum of money without interest, or let you stay in their house on an open-ended basis, or invest in your business, or recommend you to get a job.
These qualify.
Real friends help you.
I wrote the final play in this collection to illustrate this concept, it is not long:
https://leanpub.com/fourparables [leanpub.com]
It is called "How to build a boat out of water", which is an allegory about our system, where someone who has no money is like a drowning person, and the people who have boats want to give you the thumbs up and say good luck building a boat, while you are chased by sharks, and worse.
In true capitalism, I believe, people would be seen as resources, and every boat would need more sailors, and everyone would have an interest in more people having more boats.
But in our system it seemss it is the opposite, everyone is afraid of everyone elses boat, and drowning people are perceived as potential disease vectors.
I read an article recently about a visitor to china in the early 1900s, he saw a boat with pigs and humans capsize, and the people on shore went out in boats...to rescue the pigs.
Same concept, but not even I would have had the dark view of humanity to put that into my play as one of the episodes...but maybe i should.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 20 2020, @07:45PM
My grandfather used to work in coal mines in the early 20th century. He said in the event of a mine collapse, the owners would pay crews to rush to dig out mules. But anyone that wanted to rescue miners had to furnish their own equipment and do it without getting paid. The mules were a one time cost that the mine owner had already paid, so it was cost-effective to save them. Miners were paid by the hour and there were always more miners than mining jobs, so miner deaths were irrelevant to owners.
That same grandfather moved away from the coal mines to work at General Motors. Later in his life he saw the evils of the completely corrupt United Auto Worker's union. But as bad as the UAW was - and in the 1970s at the height of GM's success he predicted the UAW would be the downfall of GM - he had far more hatred for the mine owners and capitalism in general than for bad worker unions.