Twitter can trigger psychosis in users Twitter can trigger psychosis in predisposed users, according to a team of doctors from the Universitätsmedizin hospital in Berlin. A study Twitter Psychosis A Rare Variation or a Distinct Syndrome? concluded that Twitter may have "a high potential to induce psychosis in predisposed users" based on the case of a 31 year-old …
> A study ... based on the case ... the five doctors wrote.
Which reminds me of the old joke:
"Doctor, doctor! When I wave my arms over my head, I get a pain in my neck."
and the doctor replies: "Well stop waving your arms over your head. <ding> Next patient please."
Really. Do they have nothing better to do?
My Wife's brother's child (14 years old) was banned from using so-called "social" networking for a month[1]. She got the classic withdrawal symptoms ... shakes, sweats, angry, name it ...
Don't believe me? Try not to feed your jones for a month. I dare you.
[1] She ran up a huge cell phone bill.
I did IRC and Usenet decades ago, and "talk" before that. I grok text.
She's not my niece, she's my Wife's brother's child. Wife, brother, and child were all adopted, and share no genetic material. Being explicit makes more sense than drivel such as "Hi, I'm gud, R U?"
I note that you didn't actually address my point ... the addiction factor.
She's not my niece, she's my Wife's brother's child.
So she's your brother-in-law's daughter, which makes her your niece. From the OED (and all other dictionaries I checked):
niece, noun:
A daughter of one’s brother or sister, or of one’s brother-in-law or sister-in-law.
Adoption makes no difference, and I doubt she'd thank her Uncle Jake for considering that her adoption made her somehow less of a family member.
> Again, try addressing my point, the addiction factor.
Addiction is a known medical problem. If she suffers withdrawal-like symptoms when anything is taken away it's probably time to look for some professional guidance (for her and her parents), to help her avoid more serious problems in the future.
I doubt you'll find suitable advice here...
"I doubt you'll find suitable advice here..."
jake isn't looking for advice. By "address my point" he means "express awe at my insight", as usual. Despite the fact that, as pointed out by someone else, he's described typical behaviour of a teenager denied something they're really into. Been a plotline in sitcoms longer than Twitter's been around. I don't believe the symptoms bit - I regard him as what's commonly called an "unreliable narrator".
> my partner's sibling has a daughter, but I am not married to my partner? Is she still a niece?
Legally, no. If you and your parner have some form on civil partnership agreement it might change things, that probably depends on the law where you and they live.
> how do they rule out occasional drug use as not a factor?
Summat like this, perhaps?
Puff - "How do you feel now?" "I'm fine, doctor ... doctor ... doctor ... doctor ... doctor."
Tweet - "how do you feel now? (in unison)" "Kill 'em all"
Maybe the actual report's original title was
Twitter can trigger Psychoanalysis in Users.
I question the extent to which Twitter triggered this condition. This woman had 'Ideas of Reference', where she believed random events had huge significance for her. Wikipedia gives a number of examples of the phenomenon, and this would appear to be just another example. If Twitter didn't exist, likely something else would have caused this woman to have this delusion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideas_of_reference_and_delusions_of_reference
" If Twitter didn't exist, likely something else would have caused this woman to have this delusion."
And that is why this report started with the line "Twitter can trigger psychosis in predisposed users". "Predisposed" means that other things may also trigger it. The point of the report is that Twitter is one risk factor that should be considered, and the report provided evidence and explanation of why Twitter may more likely to do so than other activities (such as reading El Reg comments for instance).
The damn docs just wanted something buzzwordy to get press attention.
Nutjobs have been getting messages from deities, celebrities, dead relatives and past lives using any available medium since yonks, BC.
Tea leaves, stone tablets found on mountains, scrolls left in caves, crystal balls, music played backwards, morse code over short wave.... of course they'll turn up on twitter too.
I used to joke about these things along with the best of them: "just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you". But having seen symptoms of psychosis, too close for comfort, it's too painful for me. The rest of you carry on.
Various things can trigger it, e.g. stress and drugs, so it is easier to point to the drugs than twitter, especially the marijuana in this case.
Whereas the psychiatrists investigated whether she had a history of psychosis in her family, I should have expected them to check for other mental illnesses with milder symptoms, because they also are indicative of risk.
And yet I recall the case of some psychiatrists who wanted to prove the inadequacy of diagnosis in mental hospitals. They presented themselves as schizophrenic, acting out the symptoms, and were duly admitted. Later, they played their hand as intended, and challenged the institution for having misdiagnosed. And so they proved their point. But, having behaved in a certain way, they had actually become schizophrenic, and had to undergo treatment themselves.
So bad behaviour can make you mentally ill. You must decide for yourselves whether Twitter is healthy.
"Sometimes, she would spend several hours a day reading and writing messages, neglecting her social relationships and, sometimes, even meals and regular sleeping hours. She finally felt increasingly desperate because she could not fulfill all of the tasks, became increasingly afraid of what would happen to her if she did not, and finally, developed intense suicidal thoughts."
A standard day of the sysadmin-developer.
Really, what's so special?
Exactly. And before that it was woodland glades, caves, streams, mountain tops and the desert. I think that covers most of the religions whose founders sounded as though they were on something funny.
What's more, the obsessions of psychotics follow the current obsessions of society. During the peak of Victorian religiosity, it was religious mania. Currently we have people who are, from their actions, at least possibly psychotic, going in for anti-Semitism directed against Jews with no connection to Israel.
Perhaps the answer is for people prone to mental illness to live in small communities with limited access to the outside world, watched over by trained staff. But no, too simple.
The 5 doctors are basing all this on one patient and then saying it applies to everyone? Is this a publicity stunt by FB or some other social network? Usually, or so I thought until now, after finding the first patient, they'd look around for others to corroborate their findings and then name it after the first one or the lead doctor.
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