I think that it’s a common myth. In certain situations it can be true, but not generally.

It’s a case of people thinking the past was better than it actually was.

Question of the day! Obviously there are no definitive answers. So I’ve only got more questions… sorry.

I wonder if our tech choices project our thoughts / feelings / worries…

Hardware… Do we buy a certain brand as a talisman to tell the world we belong to a particular club? And do we put stickers on our laptops to emphasise that? Do we get the latest bit of kit to say “I’ve made it”? Does staring at a screen isolate us from engaging with those around us? And do we actually want that? A nicer world inside the device than outside? Do we prefer the voices in our tech to those in real life?

Software… Do we play multi-player games just for interaction with others? Are we using social media to ‘piss into the wind’? Or do we want / need to engage with others? Is Lemmy a club of like-minded individuals, where we feel safe and secure in the knowledge that - mostly - people here think / feel the same way as I do? Are we addicted to up-ticks to confirm our views? Or to massage our ego that we’ve got a certain level of popularity?

Tech has no agency. As such technology makes us do nothing. We are the agents in the relationship.

If your tech is making you feel lonely, sit down and see what it is about the tech that does that. Then expunge the portions of the tech doing this to you. You are the one with agency, after all. You are the one picking up that phone, turning on that computer, firing up that video game, logging in to that social media site. If you feel compelled to do any of that, look closer at the source of that compulsion. You’ll find to your shock that it’s not the tech doing it. It’s people.

The cut the people out that are making you feel lonely. Foster relationships instead with people who don’t make you feel lonely.

Does a wrench make us more lonely?

I think technology is a tool and inherently it does not make users more or less lonely. It can do either depending on how it is put to use.

Pervasive loneliness is I think a product of the capitalist political-economy. Most people who work are drained of the time and energy that could have been spent socialising. It also atomises us as individuals and cultivates an individualistic mentality. If neighbours don’t have to rely on each other but rather have to work for eight hours a day so that they can afford to be customers of large coporation which meetd their basic needs, they will not be able to find the time to form tangible social bonds.

Technology then plugs this hole because it is something people can use from the comfort of their homes after a tiresome workday. And again we have to end up being customers for corporations who because of their profit motive do not solve this problem but only exploit it. So I go with this option:

would you say that such Tech toys and gimmicks are potentially a placeholder for our own emptiness…?

I doubt that technology in general causes loneliness but there has been research showing that those who use more social media are more lonely.

I wouldn’t say technology is causing loneliness but the ways that technology is applied to social situations can cause loneliness.

For example:

• I would of thought the printing press served to inform people of news, helping reduce the feeling of alienation of people who are different.
• Using video conference software, such as Microsoft Teams or Zoom, to facilitate working from home will make us more lonely as we are able to communicate less frequently with others and there are some ways of communicating that are hard to facilitate over this software.

Technology is but a tool, If someone prefers looking at their phone than dealing with you it’s a you ptoblem

I think technology is more reliable than the people in our lives and we migrate towards reliability. This makes people even less reliable than the technology around us and it feeds a cycle that isolates us from others. The people who design the technology then manipulate their products to make them more addictive and feed what we respond to.

I have never felt regret over making one choice over another. My regrets in life is that the options I had to choose between were never acceptable to me from the beginning. Life is sometimes a process of choosing between the lesser of two evils. I would not describe myself as lonely, but if I was lonely, it’d definitely be because i chose to be lonely over some other option.

Agree with others in here: it depends what you do with it.

What is clear imo is we cannot trust anyone other than ourselves and our warm collective communities (online or otherwise), to shape the role technology plays in our lives.

We have access to amazing technology yet the majority waste this magnificent gift on what is basically toxic waste.

That’s why places like lemmy give me hope, because more people here seem to “get it”.

Its the anology of a pencil, it can be used to stick someone’s eye out or be used to draw things. Nothing inheriently makes us do anything - we choose how something makes us react. But it really depends on how people use technology that matters.

Which also plays into how I believe in the power of the individual. You have complete control of yourself, but you need to exercise that control. Most people nowadays are so controlled by evil forces which hinder their development and most people’s minds are enslaved by the things of our time. For example playing the latest video games, getting in on the latest fashion, buying the latest car, caring/impressing others.

But to answer your question essentially tech companies are mostly controlled by evil satanic forces which use technology for the disadvantage of mankind and it breeds all kinds of destructive things such as mental health issues (which I think incorporates lonliness). I mean lets be real here fifa is an absolute scam where they get kids to buy fifa points in the hopes of receiving a rare player and they essentially waste their money, what’s worse is these people buy fifa each year when very little has changed with the game. Its an absolute scam and its kinda sad to see so many kids being disheartened by not getting their player of choise. But hey, its ok because the CEOs of EA have their nice fancy cars and their yachts and their mansions.

I think it’s more just cars making people more isolated.

i would definitely be more lonely without it

I think its okay and even healthy to be bored.

When you’re bored your mind turns to thinking instead of absorbing. We absorb a lot of information but do little to process it. An exception might be made for those in school I suppose.

But even when away from a cell phone or computer your mind still thinks about the internet…it’s still there. You need a hard break, but it’s not that easy because those around you need hard breaks too or you’ll be talking to someone distracted.

Now to your question, I do believe it makes folks lonely because there’s too much stimuli, too much to find out, too many people to talk to. Its never enough but we try. It’s exhausting and not as rewarding as actual human interactions.

It’s easy to say take a look at your life and change it, but when everyone you know is glued to a phone too, it’s now lonely being the only disconnected one.

I always think of this question is a bit of a scapegoat.

Technology doesn’t dictate our happiness, we just imprint our own feelings of loneliness on to the technology to relieve ourselves of any responsibility.

When I find myself hesitant to reach out to my loved ones it’s not because I have too many choices and how is a contact them it’s because I am hesitant to take away time with myself.

We kill time with video games or social media but before that it was books and other dead tree media. It’s not the technology it’s ourselves.

I think technology so far has had a negative impact on society. Both from an individualistic and from a societal perspective. Because of technology, inequality is increasing, we become more polarized, more lonly, feel disconnected, democracies are neglected and completely dependent on tech giants whom act in opposition to our common interests.