4 ms·

Mental health - specifically in a future where we may be increasingly more connected virtually but increasingly less connected physically. In one or two decade

by nugget 11y ago

Mental health - specifically in a future where we may be increasingly more connected virtually but increasingly less connected physically. In one or two decades when the average urbanite is serviced by on-demand autonomous vehicles and drones, works from home (or not at all), consumes news/media in a personalized subreddit-like echo chamber interspersed with cleverly integrated native advertising, and spends 10+ hours/week in VR, what are the implications for their mental health? As physical community and socialization are often pointed to as the greatest predictors of happiness, how do we best translate that deep seated human need into the future? As medical science continues to improve treatments for cancer, worn out joints, failing organs, and other physical ailments, I think the mind will eventually emerge as ''the final frontier'' of health care and well being.

codeshaman 11y ago
That. We still don't know what long-term exposure to highly condensed, highly customized information does to our brains and social systems as a whole. For example, there are signs that social network users are actually unhappy - in other words - are experiencing all kinds of mental health issues. It is well known that programmers experience "burn outs", which, from personal experience, is a terrible and debilitating state sometimes even leading to suicide. There is addiction to gaming, chat, porn, social networks. Mobile phones have exposed everyone to the infinite stream of information/communication and I think this will lead to many more mental health issues. I think we are not yet prepared for the kind of impact that current and future tech will have on our minds, so this would be a worthy field to invest in now.
baron816 11y ago
This is something I'm trying to address with my startup, Krewe: https://www.gokrewe.com/about https://www.gokrewe.com/about. I want to make it easy for people to quickly form strong, lasting friendships and relationships and become connected with their local community. It gives people access to a small social group in their neighborhood and gradually allows them to expand that group. Since everyone lives so close to each other, it makes it possible to get together often, even everyday if they want, without having to deal with extensive planning or traffic. If YC or anyone else wants to fund me, I'd be fine with that.
aacook 11y ago
Came here to say the same. Last night I was hanging out with my 3-year-old nephew and wondering how different his life will be, especially with all the advancements like VR coming our way. I feel lucky to be old enough to remember what life was like before the internet. The idea of people spending 10+ hours in VR per week scares me, but it's probably pretty similar to video game and smartphone usage. Maybe that would be a good place to start research. A little over a month ago I started working on forming new habits, severely limiting use of network tools. I now only check email/sms/etc twice per day. At 6pm I put all technology away. I'm asleep by 9:30pm, awake at 5:30am, and try not to look at any network tools again until 10am. I'm considerably happier and more productive now. It's a tough habit to maintain and I'm pretty sure a few of my friends think I'm nuts. A couple good, related reads: http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/dp/1455586692 http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/d... http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-useless-agony-of-going-offline http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-useless-agony...
deleted 11y ago
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by nugget 11y ago

codeshaman 11y ago

That. We still don't know what long-term exposure to highly condensed, highly customized information does to our brains and social systems as a whole. For example, there are signs that social network users are actually unhappy - in other words - are experiencing all kinds of mental health issues. It is well known that programmers experience "burn outs", which, from personal experience, is a terrible and debilitating state sometimes even leading to suicide. There is addiction to gaming, chat, porn, social networks. Mobile phones have exposed everyone to the infinite stream of information/communication and I think this will lead to many more mental health issues. I think we are not yet prepared for the kind of impact that current and future tech will have on our minds, so this would be a worthy field to invest in now.

baron816 11y ago

This is something I'm trying to address with my startup, Krewe: https://www.gokrewe.com/about https://www.gokrewe.com/about. I want to make it easy for people to quickly form strong, lasting friendships and relationships and become connected with their local community. It gives people access to a small social group in their neighborhood and gradually allows them to expand that group. Since everyone lives so close to each other, it makes it possible to get together often, even everyday if they want, without having to deal with extensive planning or traffic. If YC or anyone else wants to fund me, I'd be fine with that.

aacook 11y ago

Came here to say the same. Last night I was hanging out with my 3-year-old nephew and wondering how different his life will be, especially with all the advancements like VR coming our way. I feel lucky to be old enough to remember what life was like before the internet. The idea of people spending 10+ hours in VR per week scares me, but it's probably pretty similar to video game and smartphone usage. Maybe that would be a good place to start research. A little over a month ago I started working on forming new habits, severely limiting use of network tools. I now only check email/sms/etc twice per day. At 6pm I put all technology away. I'm asleep by 9:30pm, awake at 5:30am, and try not to look at any network tools again until 10am. I'm considerably happier and more productive now. It's a tough habit to maintain and I'm pretty sure a few of my friends think I'm nuts. A couple good, related reads: http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/dp/1455586692 http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/d... http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-useless-agony-of-going-offline http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-useless-agony...

deleted 11y ago

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