Dear Social Media, Corona virus , or how to cultivate psychosis ?

In sociology and psychology, mass hysteria (also known as mass psychogenic illness, collective hysteria, group hysteria, or collective obsessional behavior) is a phenomenon that transmits collective illusions of threats, whether real or imaginary, through a population in society as a result of rumors and fear (memory acknowledgement)

A common type of mass hysteria occurs when a group of people believe they are suffering from a similar disease, sometimes referred to as mass psychogenic illness or epidemic hysteria.

We are actually living a mass hysteria.

All over the world, nearly a billion people are confined this weekend because of the huge crisis of COVID-19. Some people are still working from home all day long, and some others are just watching movies or reading some books.

One thing is certain : confinement has greatly increased the power of social medias. Whether it’s because people are bored and want to know what’s happening on their Instagram feed, because they want to learn more about the very intense situation of the moment, or because they want to talk to some friends because it’s the only possibility to have a conversation with a friend during these days (video conferencing applications have never been more successful).

However, we’re all experiencing a big change in our life right now, we’re not all exactly in the same situation but everyone is living a situation of big adaptation, and COVID-19 is concerning all of us. It’s impossible to go on a social network without hearing about it, without reading things that can make us feel better, or make us even more afraid.

Everybody is publishing their thoughts about this pandemic, and we’re hearing practically nothing but that. It’s difficult today to go on a social media just to clear our head.

Social medias are practically the last point of contact that we have today, we’re all separated from each others. We’re all afraid, and sharing our thoughts, or sharing videos that make us laugh about this situation. That shows us that we are all experiencing the same situation of fear and misunderstanding during this great crisis.

We’re aware that we’re living a moment in history, we are discovering a feeling that we didn’t know before.

The situation, oddly enough, separates us but also brings us together. We know that this whole crisis will bring enormous changes in the world, and it naturally causes hysteria in all of us.

Salomé Lacoeuilhe