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I have a family member with a diagnosed psychiatric disorder requiring antipsychotic medication. They have paranoid delusions that they're convinced are real. They can't be reasoned out of the beliefs that cause them fear and anxiety. In fact, trying to do so further... /1
...entrenches them in their beliefs and causes them to suspect that you're part of the forces opposing them. But they do respond to love, kindness, gentleness, and respectful redirection.
What's freaking me out right now is that I'm seeing people w/o psychiatric illness... /2
What's freaking me out right now is that I'm seeing people w/o psychiatric illness... /2
...acting the same way. This is what I was getting at last week when I tweeted that consensus reality, which typically helps us distinguish between psychiatrically organized vs. disorganized thinking, well vs. unwell people, appears itself to be unravelling, fractionating. /3
The effect is growing every moment the population is consuming increasingly individualized, algorithmically sorted news and/or information sources. The effect is resistant to fact-checking because fact-checking itself is suspect. /4
I'm increasingly convinced that a vital aspect of adapting to this technological age will involve developing a clear understanding of how our very perceptions are being altered/manipulated by the mediated nature of the information we're consuming. /5
Whatever things we've historically fought for as humans, whether it's racial justice or conservative values or health & wellness or awareness of XYZ... we have to understand the impact of the media/mediums we're using, that they distort in ways we don't intend. /6
