"The symptoms began around eight months before Mrs C came to the hospital. Two months prior, she had begun to use Twitter "excessively", and before then she had never experienced any form of psychosis and there was no family history of mental illness. She spent several hours a day reading and writing on the microblogging platform, "neglecting her social relationships and, sometimes, even meals and regular sleeping hours".
The [Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease] paper reports how it all began when Mrs C believed a famous actor had responded to her messages using symbols and the retweets of other users. This accelerated into the formation, in her mind, of covert commands for her to
carry out specific tasks.
...After recovering, the subject suggested that a variety of other factors had contributed to her deterioration, including professional problems and no stable romantic relationship, which gave her an "overall insecurity that aggravated the symptoms"
The doctors suggested, however, that something else had contributed: Twitter spam.
The team suggested this after doing a few spam tests themselves. Namely, they tweeted at science writer Ben Goldacre. The message the team got back, not from Goldacre, but from a spam account, read: '"@Gour username9 Cold blooded RT. XXX: I am in the church: Ga link9."' Which apparently constitute "strong, personal words". Combined with the fact it was directed at the original sender, messages like these could feel arresting for a vulnerable individual.
"The authors understood that this was a spam message, but this might not be the case for a person who is predisposed to psychosis and, in addition, in a stressful psychosocial situation," write the team.
"The authors believe that the amount of symbolic language (caused by the limitation of 140 characters per Twitter message), the automated spam responses with seemingly related content, and the general interactive features of Twitter might combine several aspects that could induce or further aggravate psychosis."
..."We believe that there is a difference [between] something that is unidirectional, like a TV show, and something that is interactive, like Twitter," Kalbitzer told us. "In particular the fact that spam bots on Twitter are, to a certain degree 'intelligent', means they send you ads according to your behaviour or message content. That would be [the same] as if you put on lipstick at home, and suddenly the guy on TV starts to talk about how old fashioned the colour you use is.""
16 comments:
Interesting case.
They wrote about the disease but failed to mention any "follow-up" tweetment.
Urrrrgh!
Much more common is message board paranoia...who are really sockpuppets...dun dun DUN!
Twaddle.
They're describing standard psychosis, this time enlisting a new technology.
TV, radio, computers, magazines, books, the arrangement of furniture in a room, and pieces of string can appear to be symbolic personal messages that "could feel arresting for a vulnerable individual."
What they're writing is nothing new, except the use of Twitter makes it seem current. It's the same old boring psychosis, just a shiny new wrapper.
I hate science news.
@deborah: I've suffered for years from MBP...
I once had a patient who interpreted his electric bill as a message from the power company's president directly to him personally.
He stalked the prez because he thought the guy was breaking into his apartment and moving chairs and cups and his toothbrush just slightly off from where he'd left them, to taunt him. Got arrested for attacking the poor man wen he was going into work one day.
Crazy people see meaning and patterns in all sorts of crap.
Meaning it isn't twitter causing psychosis, but psychosis using twitter.
I agree, Pogo, but it's interesting how all the symbols in twitter messages and its interactivity adds a new twist. And I did try to use a responsible title :)
The article quotes a doctor's distress over people using the term Twitter Psychosis like it's common and a real thing:
[Dr. Kalbitzer], after seeing how his current paper has been sensationalised on Twitter, however, he does not recommend it as "a source for further information" on this particular topic.
"It is hard to read these fantastic headlines in the news. No patient was ever admitted to our hospital with 'Twitter Psychosis'," he told Wired.co.uk. The point of his and his colleagues' paper is not to cause mass panic, but simply to put out an inquiry to the wider academic community to see if there are more examples they can learn from. Mrs C's case is a novel and important one, because she did not suffer from psychosis before. Kalbitzer explains that people who suffered similar reactions to email spam, in the case studies he is aware of, already had symptoms.""
O/T what got me was Twitter being referred to as a "microblogging platform"...I'd never thought of it that way before!
MBP
Actually, psychosis causes Twitter.
You have to be stark raving mad to use it.
Don't look at me, I don't even Facebook :)
'Night all.
Deb, that wasn't meant as criticism against you, but against the article.
Journalists can't seem to write about anything, whether science, medicine, cars, construction, religion, etc. without screwing it up.
Worse still, this was in a science mag. Fads rule, i guess.
That's why I like bloggers, who have subject matter knowledge (or their commenters do) to clarify or correct what's in the news.
Gawd, what a crab I am.
It's daytime television.
It makes me go mental when I see spelling like "behaviour"! Get a grip - this is America! Speak American!
*calming breath* - there, all better...
Damn! I forgot the NSFSG tag.
No worries, Pogo. I can just imagine the unending line of patients consulting you about things they've read in the popular press.
By the way, Pogo, it hurts when I do this :)
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