Tech’s Relationship With Depression, Suicide and Asperger’s

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http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/te ... ature-roto

Thank you Boo

I blame technology for my depression it's made everything more fast pace and complicated than it was when my parents were my age. People are becoming tied to machines even myself. I admit without a computer I wouldn't be able to spell or communicate as well, but sometimes I feel because we're so used to having things at our finger tips we're beginning to form incredibly unrealistic expectations of ourselves. I especially hate what smart phones have done to society. The world is becoming too fast pace for me, I'd feel a lot less depressed and suicidal in a world with a better balance of work and free time. I'd also like a world where you wouldn't need laws about cellphones and driving because people wouldn't actually be that stupid.

Angel, I understand where you're coming from, but would like to draw some subtle distinctions. Let me start with technology: Only things with moral agency can be good and bad--in other words, no object besides a human being can be inherently good or bad. So, it's not technology per se that is bad, but the way it is used. That smart phone (I don't own one or want one) is only as good or bad as the person using it.

The sole exception I'd draw is TV; I haven't had one in my house since 1992. TV may be good for something, but the last time I checked, nothing I saw on it was fit for human consumption. But, unlike the Internet, which is an active medium--meaning we can create and participate the way I'm doing now--TV is a passive medium; we can only consume it instead of creating its content.

The real problem is how we use and perceive these things, which is a function of culture. Our culture has been thoroughly degraded in every respect save technology. Not even TV is inherently bad, though the people who create the programming are very bad.

I do share your distaste for the fast pace of modern life, as well as much of what passes for modern culture. There is a way out though, and would be easy for you as a Canadian. I found the best way to escape the environment you describe is to move to an area in which it is impossible to commute to a big city for work. It is a totally different world.

When I lived in Houston, if the speed limit was thirty, everybody drove fifty. Where I'm living at now if the speed limit is thirty, people drive twenty. They are in no hurry, and it is refreshing. The house I'm sitting in right now I had built almost four years ago. I don't have a key to the doors on my key ring; I've never locked the doors. I've never felt a need to.

Living in the boonies isn't for everybody, but it has worked out very well for me. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

The real problem is people, as we do have the moral agency to use things for good or bad, or not use them at all. If technology distresses you, you have the right and ability to keep it out of your personal life. And if you want a slower way of life, that's up to you as well.

Many machines have the potential to cause ill health

Obesity is related to computer and gaming use

So to come out and simply say its the people who use them, is not 100% correct

Of course those with damaged genes and DNA will potentially suffer the most harm from harmful modern devices, modern practises like vaccination, modern foods that are toxic to the body

more so for some dispositions and genotypes

I have worked in dangerous industrial environments that even with safety gear have harmed me.....so its not just me thats the problem.

Even proximity to a screen or monitor is harmful in terms of a radiation stressor on the body

then the social stress of trying to fit in an online pecking order run by a constantly evolving brat pack with issues

Technology helped me in this respect. If it wasn't for the internet, and some of the people I've met on it, and some of the stuff I've learnt from it, I would have killed myself years ago. I may still be depressed, but sadly for the rest of humanity I'm still here! Ha!

You people are confusing the tools with their users. For example, a gun is harmless if it is not used - leave guns alone and they won't be used to kill anyone.

Video games have no relationship to obesity if they are not played.

Just because people are stupid enough to use a cell phone while driving does not mean that cell phones (or cars) should be banned.

Smart phones have done nothing to society that society has not wanted done to it.

If you don't like technology, then don't effing use it!

Last edited by Fnord on 02 Jan 2012, 2:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

True dat! Humans screw s**t up, not microchips, and it's us who invented all the technology anyway

It's like people blaming the fast-food industry for childhood obesity, when it's the kids themselves who are stuffing their fat faces and filling their fat bellies with all that fat-laden food.

It's lame excuse to abdicate personal responsibility for one's own actions by blaming anything other than one's own self.

^ Yes.

Technology is a wonderful thing, but most people, instead of owning it, are owned by it.

Only in Soviet Russia

I immediately know when I have spent too much time on my computer. I find myself trying to press Ctrl z every time I make a mistake in hand written work!

OK I'll be more clear I hate people who are consumed to the point that they expect perfection and efficiency out of everything but they don't give a crap about other people. I'm mad at the vast majority and also what they do with technology. Where I work people are constantly on cellphones and they are so rude about it that it's unbelievable. Not only that but because everything has to be so fast pace for everyone else I get in trouble for not being able to keep up. So yeah when I try to talk to someone about something important and they're on a phone with a friend I want to grab it and smash it as hard as I possibly can. Then I want to slap them upside the head and ask them if me keeping my job is just as important as their meaningless conversation. I dropped a friend recently because she always pulls out her phone when ever I'm with her. I don't even know why she wants to bother with me. She doesn't actually care if I'm in the same room as her. I obviously have a lot of anxiety towards cellphones. As far as tech goes I just really hate people using those the way they do. The combination of technology and a stereotypically conforming society is bad news but that's just my personal opinion.

Tech has help me socially and helps prevent me from my anger fuse getting to short.

So, you seem to have more of an issue with being ignored than with technology. Would it matter if a person chose to pay more attention to the book or magazine they were reading? How about is they were paying more attention to their knitting or their music lessons - would you hate them for that too?

Yes, but at the same time there are financial incentives for global food processing companies with mega funded lobbying power to get as many people as possible to eat their unhealthy food. They have just recently persuaded congress to adopt pizza as one of the five a day vegetables presumably because it has a smear of tomato puree on it. So should children now eat five pizza's a day? No, but why did the food companies lobby to have it classed as a vegetable? So that people could be fooled into thinking that pizza was a healthy eating option, and children are the easiest people to fool. Once a child begins to eat unhealthily it sets them on a course of struggling with their health all their life.

So I would say that food processing companies are to blame actually and they should have their powers curtailed.