In his diaries from the 1930s, Robert Musil notes that both contraception and anesthesia had changed peoples’ relationship to risk, and to violence, to their own bodies, by reducing the degree to which risk must be calculated, and the potential for animal suffering. In his own words, the quote, “agitated recklessness of the man is on the wane.” I don't think Musil means this entirely positively or entirely pejoratively. He's just observing.
Leopardi, in the Zibaldone, writes about a farmer who sells one of his bulls to a butcher, but can't really let go emotionally. So the farmer follows the bull to the slaughterhouse, follows the butcher, and as soon as the bull falls to the ground, its throat slit, the farmer bursts into tears. I think this is a very good metaphor for us and technology.
There's something about some people who seem to lurk on the internet, who write constantly about their trauma, their suffering, their hatred of the world, their distrust of it, whatever, that reminds me of the early Christians who dwelled in caves, consumed with a sense of the world's sinfulness. I’m thinking particularly of constantly-upset progressives who are convinced they found the true religion, only that the world hasn't caught up yet.