Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 18:44:30 -0400
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: [WSFA] What Witchcraft Is Facebook?
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

I told y'all that Facebook is a bad idea....

Excerpt:
According to Bartholomew, there is "potential for a far greater or global
episode, unless we quickly understand how social media is, for the first
time, acting as the primary vector or agent of spread for conversion
disorder." He believes that epidemics spread by social media are
"inevitable" and that "it's just a matter of time before we see outbreaks
that are not just confined to a single school or factory or even region,
but covering a disperse geographical area and causing real social and
economic harm."

Le Roy was the first majorly reported case during the era of social media.
But there is another significant, related detail of the Le Roy case that
sets it apart from the scores of mass hysteria that had come before it.

Marge Fitzsimmons, a 36-year-old nurse in town, also "caught" the disease.
Bartholomew said that it's not unheard of for one or two adults to be
affected, but he cannot recall any cases like Marge's, in which the adults
were not intimately involved with the children suffering from the malady.
Marge said that she knew about what was going on in town mainly through
Facebook postings.

Catching an illness through Facebook sounds wonky. But the contagion of
hysteria relies, among many things, upon the unconscious interpretation of
what is suggested to us. Fitzsimmons did not even have to be in physical
contact with the other girls to "catch" their disease. Marge encapsulates
the power of social media to penetrate and trigger actions of the
unconscious mind. She marks "a historical shift in terms of the trigger
for people being affected and sucked into these cases," Bartholomew said.
--- end excerpt ---

<http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/09/what-witchcraft-is-facebook/279499/>

        mark