Reconceptualizing Mental Illness in the Viral Age

Download or read book Reconceptualizing Mental Illness in the Viral Age written by Elliott B. Martin, Jr. and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2024-07-03 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reconceptualizing Mental Illness in the Viral Age: Souls in the Machine reframes the pop-culture milieu of the current state of mental illness and mental wellness in the post-COVID era. The profound psychological trauma left in the wake of the neuro-exhaustion engendered by this explosive epoch has created the perfect atmosphere, cybersphere, for another historical ‘Great Awakening’. Previously, infectious ideas infrequently led to moral and psychological upheaval. However, with mass, social, and popular media now comprising the psychosocial milieu from which emerge today’s social contagions the speed, ease, and facility with which ideas infect and commandeer the cybersphere is so profound as to be mentally devastating. Techno-psychopathologies have hyper-evolved. In an age of overwhelming distraction and irresistible technology, the one certainty amid the chaos is that the current standard of conceptualizing mental illness, through checklist diagnostics, has been outdated since the digital era began. The human mind is now fundamentally different.