Loss Stories

We began our survey by asking participants to recall the three worst technology-related harms they had experienced:

For the first three questions, please recall the three worst technology-related harms or losses you have experienced. Take your time! These three questions may take half of the time budgeted to complete the survey.

Describe the most harmful technology-related harm or loss you have experienced:

Describe the second-most harmful technology-related harm or loss you have experienced:

Describe the third-most harmful technology-related harm or loss you have experienced:

Participant 1

The most harmful would have to be when Texas had a freeze that disabled most electricity. There was no heaters, no ways to contact family, and transportation was basically disabled since it was dangerous to drive.
The second most harmful would have to be mid state travelling and my phone dying so I couldn't use GPS, since my sense of direction is horrible I was panicking until I found a place to rest and charge since I never invested in a car charger at that time.
Third most harmful or rather loss would have to be finishing up a college assignment the due date of, which was unfortunately a stormy day so after finishing up 70%~ the electricity cut off and my last save was only about 30%~ back.

Participant 2

playing video games as a child and losing sleep, because it has affected my sleeping schedule even now. I feel like my health is worse because of it.
my friend's in high school using technology to bully me, but never doing it in person. If technology wasn't a thing that would've been avoided. I like to think anyways.
When I was a child there were chain emails that would go around that would show extremely graphic content. I was a child so I was curious and saw some horrid things that an adult shouldn't watch let alone a child.

Participant 3

I have found myself ignoring other members of my family (children) while using technology.
I have personally experienced damage to my eyes due to over use of technology - phone, computer, tablet, etc.
Relationship loss - becuase of technology, there have not been as many reasons to see friends or family in person. We are able to constantly communicate electronically.

Participant 4

I consider collection, sharing, and use of my personal information in ways against my interests to be a technology-related harm. For example, retailers, banks, and payment networks collect detailed data about everything I purchase, and then use that information in ways against my interests, such as targeting me ads, selling or sharing the data, and making decisions with the data that may be against my interests, such as choosing which products to stock or where to locate a new store.
Participant matched this with Broken Promise I feel that technology and products are developing in a way that is reducing user control and autonomy. An increasing number of products and services are cloud-based, and I have had a number of experiences where companies go out of business, or remove features or products, and I no longer feel like I control the technology that I own. For example, I use iMessage to contact friends and family, but am not able to export my chats easily or access my messages on non-Apple products, and my messaging activity is used for on-device recommendations that I cannot easily control
I have had data stored by numerous companies, such as T-Mobile and Comcast, that has been exposed in data breaches. In most cases, these companies should not have collected so much data in the first place, but now that my data has been collected and leaked, I need to worry about whether it is used improperly.

Participant 5

When I would post on social media and TikTok and received hate comments and not what I was expecting from a video and it impacted my mental health.
Participant matched this with Broken Promise When I received an email from a credit card check and it showed that some scam bank account had been decreasing my credit score and that bank had been reported many times and nothing from the company was done about it.
Participant matched this with Broken Promise My phone breaking and loosing all my data and information.

Participant 6

Participant matched this with Broken Promise I once lost a bunch of photos and documents from a cloud service. It was incredibly frustrating, and I was very upset since it's very difficult (or impossible) to recover them once they've been permanently deleted.
My airpods started to malfunction, which was frustrating because they are expensive and I use them all the time.
I purchased new airpods and they didn't work with my TV, which is one of the main ways that I use airpods. It was irritating since my current airpods work well with my TV but they are no longer working as well as they should.

Participant 7

Not being able to sleep and staying up too late.
Loss of interest in other activities and decreased attention span as someone who already has adhd.
Less able to focus on giving my kids attention.

Participant 8

Online bullying and harassment via someone obtaining my phone number and engaging in hate speech, such as racial slurs.
I have also experienced sexual harassment via the cellphone as well from some one messaging me as a “wrong number” mistake and then attempting to engage in sexually explicit conversation.
I have experienced social media bullying with negative comments and blocking.

Participant 9

Multiple car accidents as a result of phone use
Participant matched this with Replaced Device/OS An account part of data breach which ended up leading to many accounts I’ve had, for years, being attempted to be logged into. Very difficult of a situation to clean up. Definitely had my information breached and published on the dark web, or another space for hackers. My information is still out there to this day because I still receive occasional 2FA emails.
Participant matched this with Locked Device My phone’s screen cracking and becoming inoperable after a few months, locking itself, and causing me lose years of old photos

Participant 10

I think I have not experienced major harm. One of the biggest effects on my mental health is the loss of time/feeling of ""unpopularity""/disconnection. I feel ugly and isolated from others.
Participant matched this with Hacked Financial My personal information being leaked, ie the equifax breach. I haven't seen many consequences because I am personally very attentive to my information, but I have definitely seen attempts to hack my accounts, experienced fraud, etc.
I do think online shopping has a negative effect on me and my life. I spend more money than I would otherwise.

Participant 11

As someone with an attention disorder, I would say the biggest technology-related harm I've experienced personally is an addiction to the constant stimulation of social media and other apps that in the past has greatly affected everything from school to my work. It is still something I struggle with to some degree and I have to take precautions not to waste hours at a time of my day using devices when I have other responsibilities I need to take care of.
The misuse of my data by big technology companies is something that I consider fairly harmful. Like a lot of people, I get hundreds of spam emails and calls due to companies selling my personal information, and I have also had account security breaches for the same reasons.
I was part of the first generation of kids to grow up with the internet at their disposal, and I believe it exposed me to a lot of things as a young kid that I was not ready to be exposed to which caused some fear and negative emotions. These things include adult content, violent content, or just otherwise content that should not be viewed by anyone under 18.

Participant 12

Participant matched this with Hacked Device, Hacked Social, Hacked Financial The most harmful technology loss that I’ve experienced was when my laptop was stolen, and all of my social medias and banking information was compromised.
The second most harmful type of technology related loss that I’ve experienced was intellectual infringement on art that I had created that was being sold for profit by another company.
The third most harmful technology related loss that I’ve experienced a breach on a popular website that resulted in identity theft.

Participant 13

My mother had her bank information ""hacked"" resulting in new bank information having to be acquired, her laptop repaired, and lots more security to all of her accounts.
I believe that my info was leaked or stolen by a skimmer at a gas station (this happened many years ago). No attacks to my bank information occurred and no money was lost.
I had info leaked via A credit reporting agency, the agency offered one year of watching my credit report as compensation but no loans, or credit cards were taken in my name.

Participant 14

This might be silly, but I immediately remember missing spenidng time with my dad when I was in middle school because I was too busy talking to my friends on AOL Instant Messenger. He moved out a few weeks later (unrelated) and I wish I would've spent that extra time with him.
Participant matched this with Broken Promise Towards the end of college, my laptop crashed while I was working on my senior thesis. I went into full panic mode and almost had a complete breakdown. I sent out a massive group text to anyone and everyone that I thought might be able to help - including my ex boyfriend. Thankfully my friends were able to recover everything in the end.
I was one of the last people in my friend group to get a smart phone. While they were communicating with each other via apps, I was left out of the conversation.

Participant 15

Participant matched this with Hacked Device I have had my identity stolen and money loss as a result.
Online bullying.
Participant matched this with Hacked Device, Hacked Account People hacking my accounts

Participant 16

Participant matched this with Hacked Financial I used my debit card in Target and they had a data breach, all my money was stolen by someone in China.
Pornography, addictive and dehumanizing
Media propaganda

Participant 17

I have been a victim of bullying on social media due to my appearance. Because I am black, I wore my hair in it's natural state until I was in the 10th grade. I also had braces. I would be made fun of on social media websites for being black, would be called names like ""celie"" (the color purple) due to my hair texture and made fun of because of my braces.
I have been threatened on a few occasions by people I do not know on social media. The most recent event I can think of is an incident (in high school) where I received messages on AIM (throwback!) from someone I didn't know threatening to come to my school and fight me. On another occasion, a man I didn't know threatened me after his friend wrote racist slurs on my friend's social media page.
Physical harms: I have dry eyes due to them being strained from being on my computer from my job, I wear blue light glasses, I often get back, shoulder neck pain from lack of posture due to being on my computer/phone, and lack of physical activity overall during the workday.

Participant 18

I have lost a document I spent a lot of time working on. This was an important work document that I was on a time crunch to complete. Composing the document required me to look up many facts, figures, and consult many different coworkers across several disciplines. I lost several hours of work and had to redo the document.
I took great care of my iPhone 8. It was in perfect condition. However, Apple discontinued security updates on this model so I had to buy a new phone. It was a loss of several hundred dollars.
I have had friends post unflattering pictures of me on social media. I don’t think they intended me harm, but maybe didn’t fully think through the impact of posting unflattering pictures of me. I have asked people to remove pictures or just I tagged myself from them.

Participant 19

Participant matched this with Replaced Device/OS I lost pictures when my iPhone broke. It wasn’t backed up so every picture I had on it was just gone. There were hundreds including some of the last pictures I took of my mom who has since passed away.
Participant matched this with Hacked Financial I had a privacy breech a couple years ago and my bank account was hacked. I had quite a bit of money stolen and it all stemmed back to a website I used and entered my banking info on.
I think technology has been the reason my relationship failed. There are too many accessible ways for people to be dishonest and unfaithful without getting caught

Participant 20

Participant matched this with Broken Promise I was traveling to an important job interview. This job had the potential to be life-changing. I was told that the interview was mostly a formality, and that the people doing the interview just wanted to speak with me so that they could get a feel for me before proceeding with the steps to officially onboard me. The location they wanted me to go to was a bit further than where I usually drive to, and in a location I typically don't go, so I was unfamiliar with it. I typically rely on my phone's GPS and navigation software to direct me where to go, as I am not particularly good with directions. En route to my interview, my phone died (I made the mistake of not having a full charge, and unbeknownst to me, my phone charger wasn't charging my phone properly), and without GPS I immediately started getting lost. I had to pull over at the next strip mall I saw just to buy a new charger to get my phone going again for navigation, but because of the delay this caused, I was late to my interview. Being late to the interview caused the interviewers to have a less than favorable view of me, which led to me being turned down from the job.
I met someone online in a forum meant for meeting people. We chatted and seemed to have good chemistry. Eventually, we began exchanging explicit photos with one another with the intent of meeting up. This person then threatened to send the photos I sent them to people I knew and my work if I didn't give them money to not do so. I was eventually able to work something out, but from then on, I have become wary of talking with others.
From frequent use of my phone, my vision has started to deteriorate in a noticeable way. Shifting from viewing something close (like my phone) to something further away (like the TV) now takes longer to focus than before.

Participant 21

Become lost on remote roads with no services nearby due to relying on cell service/maps.
Had somewhat valuable camera lenses essentially stolen from me through online selling services.
Migraines due to overuse on large screen monitor.

Participant 22

Deepfakes, prejudiced algorithms, and the propagation of incorrect data on the internet are the most harmful technology, twist public sentiment, and even provoke aggression. These factors can result in genuine damage such as bias, political disruption, and even physical harm.
The second-most harmful technology-related harm are privacy and security breaches. As the integration of technology deepens in our daily lives, the risk of data breaches and privacy infringements escalates. This can result in identity theft, financial setbacks, and even emotional turmoil.
The third-most harmful technology-related harm is job displacement through automation. Automation is progressively substituting human laborers across different industries. Although this can result in enhanced effectiveness and output, it can also result in unemployment and economic difficulties for those who are displaced.

Participant 23

When I was in middle school an eleven friend of mine called me and talked negatively about another friend. I went along with what she was saying. At the end of the call the girl we were discussing joined the conversation. Three way calling was a very new tool and I did not expect her to be on the call. I felt terrible.
In art school I was making a frame to pull canvas over for a painting. I cut partially into the 2x4 and then began to chisel out a notch. I was exerting great pressure on the chisel when it slipped and I stabbed my other hand. Bled everywhere, was very painful and I still have a scar.
I was a manager at a restaurant and I was opening. I had the keys and no one could get in without me. The restaurant opened 45 min late because I kept hitting the snooze on my alarm.

Participant 24

The most harmful technology loss I experienced was when I lost my I sold my laptop and didn’t back it up first. I was making videos and doing production of elearning in a time when it was really hard to find people with that skill.
Participant matched this with Locked Account The second most harmful loss was when I lost access to Dropbox for my work files. I was developing courses and lost all source files, and thus lost the ability to edit courses.
Participant matched this with Locked Device The third most harmful was when my iPod broke. It seemed inconsequential but it was not. Music is therapy for me, and at the time, going to actual therapy was not as normalized. I had just gotten married and didn’t realize that I was going to experience several personal tragedies. Not having my music was really detrimental to my mental health and my productivity.

Participant 25

Having my home robbed and my laptop stolen
Participant matched this with Hacked Device, Hacked Social Having someone almost hack my social media account because I believed they were actually my friend.
Having 150$ almost taken because the links on the page were misplaced

Participant 26

When I was younger I experienced a lot of cyber bullying.
Participant matched this with Hacked Device I have had people harass me through my phone and steal my pictures.
I lost my phone and therefore lost all my pictures.

Participant 27

This was several years ago. I had left in my job and had started a drone, photography and videography business. Well, I crashed my drone and didn’t have insurance enough to cover it and my funds were low at the moment. That was pretty devastating.
My laptop broke while I was in college, and working full time. I needed to bring it with me to study and didn’t have my files backed up. It was awful.
My car broke down, which was needed to get me to and from work. I didn’t have proper money to take care of it at the time.

Participant 28

i got stuck in a new city because my smart phone stop to work because it's battery died on me
i was not able to call my wife when she need me because my smart phone run out of battery
i got addict to social medias and waste all of time on snapchats and face book

Participant 29

Having my credit card compromised.
Choosing sitting on my ipad instead of exercising.
Participant matched this with Hacked Device Getting a virus on my computer.

Participant 30

I dropped my phone in water and it completely messed it up and corroded the insides.
I dropped my phone on the ground and it shattered the screen.
My dog pulled my Xbox off where it was placed and dented it.

Participant 31

Loss of time due to scrolling on social media, especially Tik Toc. This can take over 30 minutes of my day which is a big fat waste of time. I could be doing something way more valuable.
Frustration with not being able to figure out certain technology. For example trying to figure out things in excel. Or word, or even chrome.
Perhaps all the typing I do sometimes makes my hands hurt.

Participant 32

My most harmful technology related harm or loss occurred on a trip outside of the country. I was attempting to withdraw money from an ATM in the foreign country, and I was entering my card’s pin but the system continued to say it was incorrect. The machine took my card and I was left in a foreign country without cash or a card.
Participant matched this with Broken Promise My second most harmful loss was more mentally draining. I was almost finished with a massive project for my job that had taken several days to prepare when our Teams site crashed and my work was lost. I had to start from scratch and became untrustworthy of the system.
My third situation revolves around scam calls and schemes using payment services like PayPal and Venmo. I receive so many scam calls and messages that I have shut down my accounts before out of fear.

Participant 33

Participant matched this with Broken Promise I have lost multiple years worth of backed-up data on failing hard drives. This included sentimental data from my past, many memories, ect. This was an intense blow, and left me aimless and in despair to this day.
Participant matched this with Broken Promise I have had to make emergency large-value purchases to repair my computers when they have failed, often at times where I could not afford to make such fixes. This left me with debt and stress that I could not handle.
I have experienced a slow but steady decline in happiness due to being connected to the internet and worldwide news. It has enabled me to learn more about the world around us, which includes atrocities I would not have known about otherwise.

Participant 34

I would have to go with my neck. Specifically the left side by my shoulder. It's always bothering me, pretty much every day. And has since I started sitting at a desk for work 15 years ago. I have many things I use to alleviate this pain, such as tens machine, chiro-gun, cbd creams, hot/cold treatment, different pillows.
I've developed a terrible pain in my thumb in the past few months and it's most definitely from scrolling tik tok. I've had to kind of limit my texting and/or switch fingers to scroll. I really do wonder the long term effects of cell phone use
My eye has been twitching, and I think it's related to screen time. I work in front of a computer all day, plus get home and watch TV or play video games. All the while, I'm on a cell phone constantly.

Participant 35

Relying solely on navigation apps for directions can be harmful if the technology fails or leads you to the wrong place, potentially causing confusion or even danger, I’ve experienced this multiple times.
Dependence on autocorrect features in communication apps has lead to embarrassing or misunderstood messages for me multiple times. Especially if the technology incorrectly changes words, affecting the intended meaning.
Heavy reliance on social media for validation can negatively impact mental health, as constant comparison and seeking approval through likes and comments may contribute to feelings of inadequacy or low self-esteem.

Participant 36

I have had my computer crash or break resulting in loss of my final assignment that was due for a class. This was a very stressful time as the computer crashed as I was wrapping up my project.
I've had several emails that were not sent and left in my draft folder for emails that needed to be sent. Luckily the emails didn't have a set deadline, but it did cause some delay in workflow for reports.
My old desktop eventually broke as a result to overheating which resulted in loss of data as well. My computer's cooling system became so weak that it could not handle the powering up of the computer itself.

Participant 37

Participant matched this with Broken Promise I love taking photos and, back before cloud storage was a big thing, stored my photos on my computer's hard drive. One day the drive died and I lost a good number of the photos I had not backed up onto DVDs
I had a crappy car once and whenever I would stop at a red light, there was a good chance it would stall. Luckily it never caused an accident, but it made driving it very anxiety inducing.
Participant matched this with Broken Promise There have been times when I have lost work due to autosaving or cloud storage malfunctions. This has cost me time and caused me frustrations.

Participant 38

Participant matched this with Locked Device I lost copies of important documents I had put into a locked folder on my phone. When I got a new phone the documents were no longer available. They were only available on the phone where they had been locked and I broke that phone and could no longer access the documents.
My external hard drive malfunctioned. I was unable to access anything on the hard drive and it was like only location where I had stored some photos and files. Due to this loss, I can no longer access these files.
Participant matched this with Broken Promise The boarding pass I had downloaded on my phone would not scan at TSA. I had to go back to the desk and get a physical boarding pass. Then, I had to wait in line again to get through security. It took a lot of extra time and made me concerned about missing my flight. It was a big hassle.

Participant 39

I have had a friend attempt suicide before mostly due to interactions online. There was a lot of bullying after a post of theirs got a lot of attention, and it didn't help that they were already at a bad place in life due to other circumstances. It was a heartbreaking event and made me take a break from using the internet.
This was not something that happened to me personally but to my younger cousin and their friends. I cannot remember the details, but there was some internet trend going around with kids where they follow the rules of a game and go as extreme as they can. This resulted in the rules telling some kids to do things that could easily hurt them. Luckily, no one I know was harmed by this, but it was still a terrible thing to experience second-hand and witness what this was doing to other kids.
I was in a minor car accident as a teenager due to texting and driving. My friend at the time was driving on the frontage road with me and another friend in the car and was on their phone at the same time. When we went through an intersection, we t-boned another guy and went spinning across the road. Luckily no one was badly injured.

Participant 40

Being on places like twitter, I was often exposed to hateful bigotry directed towards the minority groups that I'm a part of, and this caused me to lose my happiness and feelings of safety. Not to a great extent, but sometimes I would be in a negative spiral reading all these negative posts and it would cause me great distress.
Throughout the years I have had several internet-based friendships that I enjoyed very much, but after something suddenly happened to their accounts- either they were deleted by the user suddenly or they were banned for whatever reason, or the user slowly stopped using the site more and more- I would lose these people forever. We often did not know each other's real names so I had no way to find them again.
The internet is so good as absorbing you into their world, it's literally designed to trapped you on the website, and it works. I have lost so much time I could have spent on more relaxing or more productive things to scrolling on the internet.

Participant 41

Participant matched this with Locked Financial Experian had a data breach and that cause some issues for me. Someone tried to create accounts in my name and that ended up locking my social. It was a pain to get verified as myself.
Participant matched this with Hacked Social Someone pretended to be me on social media sites and this caused issues for me when someone I knew saw it. Everything got sorted out but this is still annoying.
Someone hacked into my cloud and got compromising pictures of me. Then they blackmailed me and threatened release of the photos . Lose lose situation so I just let them release the photos.

Participant 42

My cellphone screen breaking while on vacation out the country had no way to contact or check anything. Had to do everything in person for my travel back home. Had to rely on the hotel staff for my transportation, had I in person check in for my flight. Going without a phone for 5 days was horrible.
Having the systems to crash while working and I work for an airline everything is about technology forward. Explaining to customers there is a delay because our systems crashed.
Having a work from home job and the internet was down during Covid when everyone was working from home or doing school. Not being able to assist my customers was hard we was all new to Covid and not sure what was going on.

Participant 43

Participant matched this with Locked Device The most serious damage I have suffered has been the theft of information and failure of the hard drive of my laptop due to a file that I received in an email that had been hacked from a co-worker, this caused me to lose important information about payments to suppliers. , sensitive information about clients, bank accounts and my agenda with data from our company, this led to having to make a significant security expense to avoid this problem in the future
Our internal network suffered catastrophic damage that left us unable to do anything with it, this left us unable to access our inventory or the operations we were carrying out at that time.
Participant matched this with Broken Promise the loss of all the information on my Smartphone which left me without the ability to communicate and with the loss of a lot of information from my work, the operating system of my smartphone was damaged and I could not do anything else with it

Participant 44

Participant matched this with Hacked Device, Hacked Passwords A few years ago, I received a number emails and notifications about my accounts being hacked. Specifically my backing accounts. Because of my reliance on technology and having my password stored on my computer, somebody was able to hack my computer and steal my passwords. They managed to get into my account and spend a good portion of my money. Thank God I was able to recoup the losses and minimize the damage.
Participant matched this with Broken Promise I recently had a hard drive crash. This hard drive contained many important files from my business. The hard drive contained backups of systems and important financial documents. I lost everything. Despite taking the drive to a data recovery shop, they were unable to retrieve it for me.
Last year, while I was out I need to jog with my family, my phone slipped out of my pocket and fell on the hard concrete floor. It fell out, bounced on the hard concrete floor and then slipped into a ditch that was filled with water. Not only was it broken, but it was also ruined completely. That was a very expensive phone. The newest model of iPhone.

Participant 45

Cyber-bullying through instagram has become a huge part of my day to day. Comments from strangers insulting me or bashing my account.
My addiction to instagram and tik tok is really harmful to my days. I sometimes sit all evening on my phone and accomplish nothing.
Participant matched this with Hacked Social, Locked Social My facebook account was hacked and the person messaged inappropriate content to others.

Participant 46

the equipment broke down quickly
I cause problems
It didn't work for me, I didn't know how to work it

Participant 47

Participant matched this with Hacked Financial In the past, banking online has caused meto have my account hacked and I had to go through many loops to have my funds returned to my account.
My dependance on technology has degraded my spelling capabilities which I was very proud of. This was caused due to using auto correct and auto fill.
Depending on technology to communicate with others has caused some tension in the past. Instead of calling I would text and sometimes people would take what I texted the wrong way because they could not hear the tone in which I was meaning to portray.

Participant 48

Participant matched this with Broken Promise I once had a had drive failure while working on an assignment for school. It set me back pretty far and I did not like it.
A rumor spread about me through social media. But I was able to squash it.
My nintendo switch accidentally got put in the washing machine. I lost the device as a result and all of my saves.

Participant 49

The most harmful technology-related harm I've experienced was the theft of my smartphone during a trip. It led to emotional distress, the loss of personal data, and the inconvenience of dealing with unauthorized access. Replacing the device and enhancing digital security resulted in financial and time-related losses.
Participant matched this with Hacked Device The second-most harmful technology-related harm was a phishing attack on my email, resulting in unauthorized access. Resolving it required time-consuming security measures, emphasizing the importance of online vigilance.
The third-most harmful tech-related harm was accidentally deleting crucial files on my computer, causing a setback in projects. Retrieval efforts emphasized the importance of regular backups and careful data handling.