Researchers at the University of Tel Aviv say social networking can have seriously deleterious effects on the psyche.
Chris Matyszczyk
by Chris Matyszczyk
May 4, 2013 10:22 AM PDT
(Credit: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)
Sometimes, normal humans take a liking to clinical terms and adopt them.
You go out on a date, and when your friends ask how it went you reply: "Oh, she's psychotic." Or perhaps: "He's delusional."
The justifications for such adjectives being used might be simple.
In the former case, the lady might have asked, just as the main course plates were cleared away, where the gentleman thought the relationship was going. This was after having described the details of her previous 17 relationships.
In the latter case, the gentleman might have talked about himself throughout the meal and offered mathematical details about his mental and physical prowess.
However, when these words are used in a clinical context, they have more precise definitions.
Which is why I have been moved to contemplation on hearing news of research from Israel. It declared that Facebook and its ilk can move the vulnerable (which might mean anyone) in the direction of psychosis and delusion.
Doctor Uri Nitzan of Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Shalvata Mental Health Care Center decided, along with his colleagues, to look at his own patients in the context of their online relationships.
He wondered whether psychopathologies might be related to activities on Facebook and in chat rooms.
As the Daily Mail reports, the researchers discovered that the patients -- who all were experiencing "loneliness or vulnerability due to the loss of or separation from a loved one" -- suffered from further negative effects the more they "socialized" online.
The Mail quoted Dr. Nitzan as saying: "In each case, a connection was found between the gradual development and exacerbation of psychotic symptoms, including delusions, anxiety, confusion, and intensified use of computer communications." (At the get-go, the patients in the study all had "relative inexperience with technology.")
One patient even came to believe that the person she was in contact with online was constantly trying to touch her physically.
