EDITOR’S LETTER
In curious symmetry this week Big Issue has startling figures about what the online world is doing to us, and something of a solution. Which is handy.
The renowned psychologist and neuroscientist Daniel Freeman reveals an incredible statistic. When he surveyed 10,000 UK adults for a new study into conspiracy thinking he found that over a quarter of them believed there was a conspiracy against them. He quoted an earlier study that found almost 40% of people believed that Covid lockdown might be an excuse to impose mass surveillance.
When the internet offers rich pickings for whatever delusional road you want to race down, it’s not hard to see how external influence can tip towards dangerous psychosis, or at least add rough salt to troubled minds. Healthcare professionals speak of an uptick in mental health disorders post-lock-down. This is an aspect the Covid Inquiry hasn’t got to yet, but you’d hope it does.
Freeman believes that Augmented Reality (AR) can help people suffering from psychosis to overcome the condition. He also believes that while the internet is not the only thing at fault in the ongoing crisis, we need to rebuild trust in society to prevent the sort of growing group fears that lead to mass paranoia. I hope those with power to influence pay heed.
Rose Rouse has some advice to help too. It’s largely to get away from the online world and be in the real world. It is eminently sensible.
Her group of older people want to, as she puts it, reflect the wild terrain of “active, rebellious oldsters” rather than the anchored, reductive narrative of older age meaning stooped backs and walking sticks. Hers is a world of being in the world, rock climbing, tennis, dancing and sex. It is intentional living and it seems to me to be a very good idea. It is about engagement with the external rather than the tripwires of the mind that come with online rabbit holes.
And there is always walking, simple walking. Robert Macfarlane, one of the great writers of nature and place in the English language, has written a lot ab
