Slashdot Mirror
Social Media Is a New Vector For Mass Psychogenic Illness
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "There is an interesting read at the Atlantic where Laura Dimon writes that mass psychogenic illness, historically known as "mass hysteria"—is making a comeback and it appears that social media is a new vector for its spread. Mass hysteria such as the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-1693, the most widely recognized episode of mass hysteria in history, which ultimately saw the hanging deaths of 20 women, spreads through sight and sound, and historically, one person would have to be in the same room as somebody exhibiting symptoms to be at risk of 'catching' the illness. 'Not anymore,' says Robert Bartholomew, a sociologist who has studied over 600 cases of mass hysteria dating back to 1566, noting that social media — 'extensions of our eyes and ears' — speeds and extends the reach of mass hysteria. 'Epidemic hysterias that in earlier periods were self-limited in geography now have free and wide access to the globe in seconds,' says Bartholomew. 'It's a belief, that's the power here, and the technology just amplifies the belief, and helps it spread more readily.' In a recent case, nearly 20 students at a Western New York Junior-Senior High school began experiencing involuntary jerks and tics. Some believe that the Le Roy outbreak was a direct result of videos posted to YouTube by Lori Brownell, a girl with severe tics in Corinth, New York, 250 miles east of Le Roy. The story took off quickly, not just on the local and national news but on Facebook and autism blogs and sites devoted to mental health and environmental issues. Bartholomew warns that there is 'potential for a far greater or global episode, unless we quickly understand how social media is, for the first time, acting as the primary vector or agent of spread for conversion disorder.'"
Psychiatrists identify social media as new source of revenue..
Truisms aside, this reminds me of the fact that they're still trying to redefine "delusions" in the DSM, because the Internet invalidated the old criteria, which went something like "Things believed by the individual, not supported by observation, and not shared with their social groups."
The internet made an avenue for crazy people to find similar crazy people, and form social connections with them, in a way that reinforced their own delusions quite directly. I don't think anyone has found a satisfactory conclusion to that problem, because they really don't want something that will classify people's religions as delusions.
Actually, 6 of the 20 people executed in Salem MA were men. And one of them (Giles Corey) wasn't even convicted, he just refused to plead and at the time torturing to force a plea was legal.
I am officially gone from
This field is the modern equivalence of the Church. Their unsubstantiated beliefs are all encompassing and explain all human phenomenons. Where once were daemon and angles, now there are illness to be treated.
Every neuroscientist's essay I've read were cautions to the extreme in their diagnosis. To the people who actully deal with evidence based medicine, the very basis of neurosis and psychosis are at best theoretical and at worst nonsense. Even psychiatric will often administer random anti psychotics to all manner of patients since the very framework for treatment is just all made up.
It's not even a big secret. Just go ask any practicing metal care professional with more than 3 years of experience and they will confirm this to one degree or another.
It's all Mambo Jambo. Mambo Jambo...
I blame Facebook for a lot, but I think they deserve a pass for this. "Mass hysteria" looks to me like a real phenomenon, but that doesn't mean the "victims" aren't doing in on purpose.
For example, from one of the stories linked in the summary:
If they can stop whenever they want, then I have a hard time calling it a "disease." It sounds more like "being an asshole." (See also, Salem witch trials.)
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
I saw on Slashdot that people iz going crazy!
It must be true! Slashdot sez so!
Guy: Where did you hear that?
Girl: The Internet.
Guy: And you believed it?
Girl: Yeah. They can't put anything on the Internet that isn't true.
Guy: Where did you hear that?
Girl: The Internet.
Girl: Oh Look, here comes my date. I met him on the internet. He's a french model.
French Guy: Bonjour.
Me:
We've probably all read accounts of primitive cultures contacted by moderns. The primitives suffer in various ways because they aren't prepared to handle what moderns have. Aside from the microbes, they can't handle the technology sometimes. If you've read those accounts smugly, quit it. The West is not immune. The difference is that we introduced the new things to ourselves. The bad news is that these authors may be right on some level even though it sounds like they themselves are engaging in hysterics. The good news is that we will eventually learn to deal with new things. We'll probably fare much better than primitives because the new things aren't part of a narrative of conquest and exploitation. Well, not so much conquest anyway.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Most of these people suffer from a sickness that requires them to share everything they do with the rest of the world.
'Wanna try some snow crash?'
facebook_ip=31.13.69.160
route add $facebook_ip gw 127.0.0.1 lo
I'll thank you kindly to finalize your intentions post haste for any doctorates, statues, or parades or street names in my honour you wish to confer upon me.
Good people go to bed earlier.
just the other day I noticed there are many church groups on facebook with people professing their belief in all the imaginary stuff that comes with church affiliation. how is this not more significant than the salem witch trials? hundreds of millions of people have been killed from this mass delusion.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Mass hysteria isn't insanity, but a component of human reaction to peer pressure. If you haven't seen 20 different people echo the same idiotic sentiment that they wouldn't have ever had if it weren't for the other 19 before, you haven't been on the internet long.
like over vaccines? only cure is to counter that bullshit with facts.
I think I have psychogenic illness now!!!
The symptom is "hysteria", the root cause is fear.
Social media (actually the WWW) is the communication medium. It makes the world smaller, this we know. It isn't special in it's ability to spread the "disease".
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
There was a (bad) horror movie along this principle: people dying in their sleep from no known cause. Apparently, if people believed that "shadow people" were out to get them, a negative placebo effect would take place, and they'd actually die from the belief alone.
The protagonist trying to expose the phenomenon was convinced, at the last moment, not to, lest an epidemic result.
In Liberty, Rene
... it is mass hysteria.
This article made me twitch... twitch... twitch...
They're like a nerve tonic.
Sounds like religion.
I can see it happening. The NSA is relatively new, so next comes the NMHPA (National Mass Hysteria Prevention Agency). They'll censor the internet systematically with advanced technology solutions and and say "No, we're not oppressing people's right to free speech. We're preventing panic caused by mass hysteria".
Edwards: Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.
Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.
The belief that your photos and comments are somehow important to anyone else on the planet.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Richmond: You shouldn't have sent out this e-mail detailing the symptoms. You know how suggestible and easily swayed I.T. people are.
Roy: That's not true!
Richmond: Yes it is.
Roy: No you're right. Of course it is.
both my kids had all kinds of conditions and diseases because my wife read all kinds of crap on the mommy and parent blogs and the kids fit most of the symptoms
Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together!
Damn those mass delusions!
"If you're not passionate about your operating system, you're married to the wrong one."
the sky isn't falling, but the oceans are rising and half of all americans are going to drown in the next 50 years
Oh noes! Whatever will we do about this nightmarish prospect? Social media could cyberattack us all, turning us into fainting hiccupping teenage girls! I can't stop laughing! Oh my god.. I literally cannot stop laughing! Help me! HAHAHA! It;s real!! HAHA! We're doomed!! We're all doomed!!! HAHAHAA!
Seriously though, there are far too many bullshit detectors scattered among the masses for this to be a serious concern. Also, we're not all teenage girls, and aren't going to start copying each others mannerisms uncontrollably. Nor are all of us going to begin uncontrollably shortening "are" to "r" and "you're" to "ur" in our typewritten communications, resulting in messages that appear to have been written by cyborg hydrocephalics.
Please do not use the term "hysteria" as it denigrates women. That word originates from the Greek word for "uterus," with the word "hysterectomy" sharing the same lineage, and perniciously qualifies women as raving lunatics.
Personally I see more hysteria transmitted through news anchors and journalists than through FB and TW, not that they do not contribute.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
...the only thing that would make this even better is if these 'diseases' were fatal.
Any disease spreadable to the special snowflakes that could catch such 'diseases' over social media could ONLY be a win for Darwin generally.
-Styopa
"... At last all the nuns meowed together every day at a certain time for several hours together." The meowing went on until neighbors complained and soldiers were called, threatening to whip the nuns until they stopped meowing.
jeeze, trigger warnings there. You just blew the circuits of like three different groups of people while getting off another six.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-1693, the most widely recognized episode of mass hysteria in history, which ultimately saw the hanging deaths of 20 women..."
Yes, that's very peculiar.
Apparently George Burroughs, John Willard, George Jacobs, Sr., John Proctor, Samuel Wardwell, Giles Corey, and Roger Toothaker-- the men killed in the Salem witch hysteria-- aren't worth mentioning, because it's expected that people will only get angry about injustice if the victims are women?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The Obama witch hunt of Syria is another example. Few facts, all of them ambiguous and yet so many senior political figures call for the USA to break it's UN treaties and attack Syria in contravention of international law even when public opinion in the USA is against such a move. This brings to light the hidden social networks used by people in Washington circles, not nearly as open as Facebook, but nevertheless instant communication, flash mobs, and mass hysteria within their circle.
Another recent example is the so-called gay-bashing law passed by Russia's parliament. Nobody, not even journalists, bothered to actually read the text of the law, which was actually a child protection law intended to protect children from outside influences who want to radicalize them. Those of you who know gay people will know that they do not all hold the same beliefs, do not all support the same political groups, do not all express their gayness in the same way. In Russia there is a problem with radical gay groups pushing a single gay agenda and recruiting underage kids who think that they might be gay. Given that it is illegal to have sex under age 18, how can a political group actually identify gay children other than by breaking the law? And why should gay kids have to come out now, and not later, in their own good time, when and if they want to. That law enabled fines (like traffic tickets) for people who promote gay propaganda targetting underage kids. It could have been passed in the US Congress. In fact there probably already are laws that prohibit heterosexual propaganda aimed at underage kids. The fact is that kids should be educated, not propagandized. Education is about drawing out the capabilities of a child, not creating a mini Marine corps training camp where everyone has to conform. But did we see any intelligent debate of this issue? No. Just the repetition of outrage at an unknown and unspecified gay-bashing law that perfectly mirrored the hysteria of the Salem witch trials.
Not that peanut and gluten allergies don't exist, but in the past few years I've gone from knowing no one with either to running into people everywhere with one or the other. Seriously, I work with three people with gluten allergies, one guy with a peanut allergy, and the waitress who served me at a restaurant last night told me she'd never had the sandwiches there because she had a gluten allergy. Menus are popping up everywhere with gluten free options.
Schools are setting themselves up as peanut free areas and banning all peanut products even though the number of severe food reactions in a country of 310,000,000 is less than 2000 a year, with fewer than 150 deaths from all food allergies in all age groups combined. More than ten times as many people die falling down the stairs every year, but we're not mandating that schools be single-story. The rate of deaths by firearm for school-aged children is far far higher (second most likely cause of death for high-school aged children after car accidents), but we don't ban guns from homes with school-aged children or prevent school-aged from going to friends' houses where there are guns.
So, don't get me wrong - peanut allergies and gluten allergies most certainly exist, but the response in lots of places has been all out of proportion to the risk involved. I wonder if part of it has to do with the easy accessiblity of compatriots via social media. We as a species like to panic about things. I'm not immune: when my son was born preterm (he's fine now) my wife and I went into what could only be described as folie a deux about his health.
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
Slapping a 'mass hysteria' label on a phenomenon you cannot explain might make you feel more comfortable in your little corner of the universe, but it should not be confused with actually determining a provable cause. Mass hysteria isn't any more provable than demonic possession or alien mind control. It's a catchall for 'I give up'.
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
This explains modern popular music in general, and the way it is marketed.
This news only applies to fucking morons. Hopefully jumping off a cliff is the next big thing and then we have nothing to worry about.
And then I galloped away, laughing. ;-)
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Bartholomew warns that there is 'potential for a far greater or global episode, unless we quickly understand how social media is, for the first time, acting as the primary vector or agent of spread for conversion disorder.'
Too late, twerking has already destroyed civilization as we knew it.
This is obviously an NSA plot to lay the groundwork to propagate false beliefs in terrorist activity to validate their ongoing domestic surveillance programs.
Actually, presenting facts to people opposed to them only seems to harden their opinion further in that direction. People are so invested in being right that they dig in deeper when their beliefs are "under attack" by facts that don't agree with what they believe.
Amusingly, you know what makes partisanship disappear? Money. If you give a financial incentive for correct answers or for admitting ignorance, people of different political strips start giving much more similar answers rather than just spouting off whatever sound bite they've heard from their own party members.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
crazy is smart
Sometimes...
smart is crazy
Sometimes...
delusions are real
Sometimes...
all that matters
is just to deal
Enough with this "lets rewrite the dictionary because it may offend someone" newspeak. You have no right to not get offended.
Okay, seriously? If so many people are going to hate on a field, at least have the decency to hate on the right one.
I'm tired of so many people taking this as evidence that psychology/psychiatry is wrong or over-reactive and therefore we must never pay any attention to it. First, the article's main expert is a sociologist, not a psychologist or psychiatrist. Granted, there's some overlap in the fields, but not enough that I'd trust the guy to start diagnosing or treating people. Second, as the article goes on, the other 'experts' referenced are in order: a nurse (LPN), a neurologist, another neurologist, and whatever the hell you call someone with a PhD in the history of medicine.
You'd think that if this were some sort of conspiracy by psychologists/psychiatrists to drum up legitimacy/business/interest for their field, they'd have the decency to at least provide an expert on their behalf.
Oh, not that this is entirely relevant, but just for the record, psychiatrists are MDs who specialize in mental disorders. Psychologists are PhDs who specialize in mental disorders and human behaviour. Psychologists cannot prescribe medications; so all the complaints about how psychologists are people who do nothing but a front for drug companies and push pills all the live long day? You're thinking of psychiatrists (and in my experience, there are a great many psychologists who would agree with you).
They is, is they?
Why yes, yes I would!
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Domestic and foreign intelligence agencies know this already.
When you listen to fools, the mob rules.
...is the retina of the mind's eye. Therefore the television screen is part of the physical structure of the brain. Therefore whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore television is reality, and reality is less than television.
No mean feat, considering the (omni-)bus had not yet been invented.
Zing.
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, by Charles Mackay
Not only relevant but a must-read for any educated person....
........monkey see, monkey do. Hard to undo a few million years of evolution.
...TV 'news', and before that there existed newspapers. Can't leave out telephones and radio news either. Gov't propaganda (think WWII 'This is the enemy' and 'the walls have ears' posters), corporate propaganda, and in fact every school in the world is a vector.
Article's premise is grade-A bullshit.
Back in the "good ol' days" Pschiatrists had a cure for hysteria. I'd say you had best look it up at home, it's definately not safe to attempt to treat your coworkers for their illness while in the workplace, unless you're a pron star.
it's exactly that point, that these things are unknowable, that makes it so absurd for someone to make up a story that's completely contrary to the known observable universe, and claim that it's true. unless of course they're talking about the flying spaghetti monster. you have to respect an idea as awesome as pasta.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Mod parent +5 unintentional irony.
We've been suffering from mass hysteria ever since Hollywood got distribution channels into every hamlet in the country. What would be surprising is if people didn't go really hysterical once they started getting a little freedom and started thinking for themselves about how they've been manipulated for over a century.
Seastead this.
Up to mid-week and the preceding month was a case study of Obama's psychogenic illness.
Ramblings of spies like 'Snowden', threats from no-where thwarted by the NSA, then stumbling from street-light to street-light along K Street to utter that he would invade and slaughter Syria was the peak of the 'fever'.
In many ways Obama, when in peak psychogenic illness say Syria as a 3-year old child that he desperately sought to butt fuck, murder and eat its flesh.
Anonymous sources at the upper-floors of the White House report that Obama is back on his meds, getting blood and estrogen tranfusions hourly and starting to recover to a recognizable human being.
There was a bit of a early shock though: Obama had an unforeseen reaction to his urine transfusion and cocaine enema and attacked beloved Bo by butt fucking the poor dog in the hall of the 2nd floor. Medics were quick on the scene but Bo's rectum is recked. Poor Bo.
Time will tell if Obama has a ... relapse.
How about we get some good out of this and create mass hysteria about the NSA watching everyone and they need to stop the mind reading?
That humans are open to subconscious suggestion?
Now cluck like a chicken.
assuming every person executed for witchcraft at the time is a popular historical mistake. At least four of the victims were men. That doesn't give me much confidence in the rest of the article.
Living in Massachusetts, I can tell you that Mass Hysteria is a very real disease.
India is suffering from one now. Like Europe once had Dancing decease /hysteria, now India have Rape hysteria decease. And it is fully transmitted through media.
Given this premise -- perhaps it's not coincidence that the McMartin Preschool witch-hunt took place about the time news media was most rapidly expanding from something you got a half hour of twice a day, to one of the major focuses of local TV stations.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Because no rational behavior does
- the President of the United States is not an American citizen
- the President of the United States is secretly a Muslim (and simultaneously a member of a Caucasian-hating "black Christian church" that is conspiring with Kenyan citizens to overthrow the United States)
- there has been a global conspiracy over the last 25 years among every government, national science foundation, peer-reviewed journal, and credible scientist in three broad fields of science to perpetrate a hoax that human-produced greenhouse-gas emissions are warming the planet
- second-hand cigarette smoke has no harmful effect on humans
- the Affordable Care Act will strip $700 million (or whatever the number is up to now) of benefits from Social Security recipients and will establish "death panels" who decide whether gravely ill citizens will be given life-saving treatment
- and the classic "seat belts kill more people than they save because they trap victims inside a car during a crash, rather than letting them be safely ejected."
If you have a free hour, check out the beautiful documentary "Chasing Ice," in which shows the results of photographer James Balog's technically challenging "Extreme Ice" project, which took multi-year time-lapse videos of receding glaciers in remote areas of Iceland, Greenland, Alaska, & Montana. The big finale, a five-minute real-time clip of a Lower-Manhattan-sized chunk of ice plunging into the sea, is something you'll never forget.
First: It's in The Atlantic, that inane former pulpit for the twisted views of Andrew A.W. Sullivan. I added the appropriate initials for him, they stand for Always Wrong. Since he left the magazine it has continued to be bright shining beacon for absurd and irrelevant takes on serious issues mixed in with oh-so-serious screeds about meaningless drivel of which this story is a prime example. Poor little rich girl Laura Dimon focuses her writing on such robustly investigated issues as "The last taboo for women" is "Doing your business (taking a crap) at work". So the Atlantic continues it's proud contributions to fleshing (or is it flushing) out the American Zeitgeist.
it's exactly that point, that these things are unknowable, that makes it so absurd for someone to make up a story that's completely contrary to the known observable universe, and claim that it's true.
If it's contrary, yes. If it's not contrary, because science is silent or merely speculative on an issue, then no.
unless of course they're talking about the flying spaghetti monster. you have to respect an idea as awesome as pasta.
Not really, since the entire purpose of the FSM is the mockery and disrespect of other people's beliefs. It may be an amusing mockery, but it is a mockery nonetheless -- and not the kind that's just a harmless joke between friends. It's the judgmental kind that says, "I'm smarter and thus better than you."
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Indeed. I won't argue that people can be collectively retarded in mass numbers at times. But I still don't think thats justification for empowering the government with wide-reaching internet censorship. If people wanna act crazy, I say: LET THEM. If I had to choose between the occasional outburst of mass hysteria versus the permanent ongoing supression of free speech, I'll take the former over the latter.
is good. There is no need to blame anything.