Technophobia is the fear related to robots and technology. According to a U.S. research, people are afraid of losing their jobs
Robots and technology, the new dangers 2.0 are the main fear for the future of millions of people The identikit of those who suffer from technophobia comes from a study developed by a team of researchers at American Baylor University, coordinated by Paul McClure, and recently published in the journal Social Science Computer Review.
The study starts from the analysis of the results of the annual report on the fears of Americans made by Chapman University and compiled on the basis of 1,541 interviews. Baylor University researchers, in examining this data, found that technophobia most often affects people with lower levels of education, women and people of color. The fear stems from the fear that robots, artificial intelligence and new technologies will take away jobs. And it’s a fear so great that it causes such a high level of stress and anxiety that it turns, in some cases, into full-blown mental health disorders.
Motivated Fear?
The fear of being unemployed because of new technology is not new in the news, McClure says. Something similar happened in nineteenth-century England when some textile workers even destroyed the new machines purchased by their employers – as history teaches us – in order to obtain cheap labor and less qualified personnel. Today the situation, McClure explains, with the speed with which robotics and artificial intelligence evolve, the consequences could be even more devastating. A fear, in short, more than motivated that puts at risk activities such as those of transporters and warehouse workers, laborers and general employees. Precisely the types of jobs typical of people with lower levels of education, women and people of color. At least in the United States. Less at risk, at least in the immediate term – but you never know – are those occupations that require a good deal of creativity.