It's the nature of all organisms to minimize stimuli that are perceived as painful and maximize those that are perceived as pleasurable. Human beings are no exception here.
With that said, I'd like to again point out that no amount of technology will end suffering. For one thing, anything could be considered suffering. Second, it's not so much that people gauge their lives by suffering, but that people gauge their lives in relative terms, based on their own prior experiences. In other words, there is no absolute yardstick for "quality of life".
- Rob