A Driver’s Suicide Reveals the Dark Side of the Gig Economy

Re:A Driver’s Suicide Reveals the Dark Side of the Gig Economy by candiodari on Tuesday February 06, 2018 @09:18PM (#16321783)

I feel like there is much psychological research that concludes the opposite of this. People love learning new things, if there's a clear reward, for instance being jobless and finding a new job because of a new skill. By contrast, people in a cushy job "settle in", and learn nothing, or even unlearn things over time.

In addition to the research, one seems to find many stories of exactly this happening.

Quite the opposite is true: people don't like learning UNLESS there is a clear reward. That's even true for the video game case, where it's simply that the reward is social rather than economical.

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Re:A Driver’s Suicide Reveals the Dark Side of the Gig Economy by socrates666 on Wednesday February 07, 2018 @11:47AM (#16325762)

I disagree. I was unemployed for a few months and I could not get myself to do the things I needed to in order to get the jobs I was interested in. There was so much anxiety associated with this that it triggered avoidance anxiety. What saved me is that studying the things I am naturally drawn to that have a lot of tangential offerings. My advice: find the biggest tree of knowledge that you're interested in and hope that the branches that you can reach will take care of you.

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Re:A Driver’s Suicide Reveals the Dark Side of the Gig Economy by ghostbrainalpha on Wednesday February 07, 2018 @12:47PM (#16326401)

I get what you are saying, I am not familiar with the research. But the video game analogy was proving my point, not the opposite.

I love to learn a new level or video game characters future is at stake. Mario's death is not a loss that triggers great anxiety for me.

Needing to get certification in a field that I am not familiar with, so that my family can stay fed and not be homeless, tends to take the "joy" out of learning for me.

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