Ask HN: If technology is so good for the world, why are we becoming less happy?

Technology isn’t good or bad, it all depends on what is done with it.

The shift to the attention economy moved a lot of the major platforms from social media to an entertainment slot machine. Without being very intentional about how you use devices and seeking out actual connection, it is very easy to get sucked in while time slips away.

>And if the technology isn't the cause, then what is it

From what I understand, important factors to happiness are family, friends, sense of belonging, sense of purpose, and then more immediate factors such as stress and work/life balance.

Technology is arguably a negative influence on some of these factors like meaningful in person relationships. Also, much of this has more to do with society as a whole (having kids, having close extended families, being in meaningful long term partnerships) than technology in particular.

Let's look at the obvious, social media, which is some of the most impactful technology used everyday by real people. It's been discussed to exhaustion, but these arguably aren't tools that contribute to factors that promote happiness. They optimize for engagement and ad revenue, not happiness. Dopamine hacking =/ happiness boosting.

Technology is just a tool. It can be great, it can be very bad. What can of technology are we investing in ?

If you look at top US companies, half of top 10 is investing tens of billions $ trying to get people addicted to screens. That's reflected in the metrics you're seeing. It's an unfair game. Hell, even the richest guy in the world got his brain rotten recently (arguably with a solid help from drugs) and is spending his days posting soft anime porn AI generated images and videos.

It's just really all about the incentives. Everybody would like the world to be a better place, but who among top technologist, which are in big numbers here, are willing to work for 1/10 of what he can make at a big co, to make it happen ?

One reason (and certainly not the only reason) is that our governments are using economic growth, specifically GDP growth as a primary measure of success. That naturally leads to under spending on education, health, police, infrastructure, programs for disadvantaged, etc.

It's also justified the destruction of workers rights, which has led to a huge number of people being paid less in insecure jobs forcing them to work longer hours.

There was a time when ideas like "a rising tide lifts all boats" and trickle-down economics justified focusing economic success but increasing inequality has shown that it's not true.

Edit: And of course technology has enabled a lot of this.

It seems like what happens is the more choice - not less - is what makes being unhappy more probable, at least for some people. Maybe it is a sense of being overwhelmed with all the opportunities that the world provides.

The connectedness then also made it easier to see what others leverage the opportunities for, which constantly forces one to compare. It is of course, well-documented that these comparisons, almost by design, make it seem like one falls behind.

It is notable that poorer countries score pretty high usually on metrics trying to quanity happiness.

One problem is that we're, on average, fatter than before, and while tech isn't the primary cause, it's a contributor. Being overweight can cause sleep apnea, which in turn can cause depression and anxiety because it turns out you get pretty anxious in your sleep when you can't breathe.

To me the biggest problem is the over-financialization of almost all aspects of our lives. Our financial sector is much larger now than it was during WWII, when we were facing a national emergency. The emphasis is always on money and double-digit profits; whether it is our health care system, which always weighs our health against investor returns (and are happy to medicate our resulting mental distress, for a nice profit); our jobs, which are structured for "maximum efficiency"--for the owners, of course, at the expense of workers, who get low pay, low satisfaction, and burnout; all the products which we "buy" but don't own; automakers who have "innovated" new ways to squeeze every penny they can out of customers (subscribe to heated seats!).

Tech is not at all exempt from this. If anything tech is more affected by this phenomenon than most other industries due to the nature of its products, which are particularly susceptible to enshitification. Tech has no shame in actively manipulating its users to their ends, as we have seen with social media, and now with this phenomenon of AI psychosis. Further, tech leaders and investors are much more interested in the next unicorn than in meeting real needs and providing genuine user satisfaction. So yes, this is a hot mess. And it is driving people mad. To me, the interesting question is, what can we do to fight back?

> This is a huge indictment of the tech industry. What happened?

Everyone afraid of indictment has either sold their stock or died.

Are we really more unhappy? Or is it more that we don't know what happiness is nowadays?

I would like to point out that technology is driven by a market of consumer apatites, not for the purpose of well being.

This is a tricky one, because the answer is so simple you may refuse to accept it, or it is made meaningless by its banality.

People are their own problem. Before we had to take more time to ourselves, we had to work out our problems and have some patience. That didn’t work for everyone either, though you can see life has been abstracted away from living somehow. It affects our self satisfaction.

Take more time for yourself. Make your own meals, keep in shape, spend time on that hobby that keeps you developing your talents. Walk more.

Technology is only an extension of ourselves.