SUNDAY 29 | OCTOBER 2017
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders - IV communicate. Then 30 years ago, email and instant messaging came and humans began to invest less time on social interactions. I don’t think the rapid depersonalisation of human interaction today is something new. Rather, it is part of a process that has always existed. Are these changes good? It is difficult to answer. Where would I be without instant messaging or the ability to learn online? I would be tremendously inefficient! The purpose of tech is to make us more productive and that, it certainly has. Yet, all around I see everyone on their phones. I feel alone in a room filled with people. Everyone is engrossed. With the rapid development of AI, our responses to messages, Google searches and preferences are being predicted and suggested. Another step toward social depersonalisation. We create technology, and then technology recreates us.” Something for us to seriously consider? (DSM-IV TR) by the American Psychiatric Association recognises behavioral addiction under substance use disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder or impulse control disorder. These changes have forced researchers and mental health professionals to include Internet addiction in the DSM V appendix as a condition requiring further research. The alarming and rapid advancement in technology still remains a huge concern that is yet to be addressed.
Dr Sharma advises, “Working on an individual’s ideal self and real self is important. Not just the online self, as people today only gauge online presentations. An anxious person who has no offline presence will try and project sociability. In the long run, we have to work on enhancement of consciousness and awareness about the use of technology, benefits and consequences. That is lacking today. Secondly, cyber literacy enhancement is a must, the dos and don’ts of being online — as children as young as 10 — Inputs from Shashiprasad SM years — have had cyber sexual issues. The third is to work on the enhancement of communication in school, at home or office. A gap between the parent and the child and a decrease in bonding and a lack of moral education ensues.”
Prof Harari is concerned about this reliance on networks and gadgets, “By 2040, we may see the creation of a massive new class — the useless class. Billions of people who are not just unemployed, but unemployable. We don’t have any economic model for such a situation. How you deal with the useless class may well be the greatest economic and political question of the 21st century.”