Take Two translates the day’s headlines for Southern California, making sense of the news and cultural events that affect our lives. Produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from October 2012 – June 2021. Hosted by A Martinez.
Parents complain that kids waste a lot of time on Facebook when they should be doing homework. It's also often criticized for violating users' privacy.
Now there's speculation that Facebook and other social media sites might actually make people sick.
In January, about two dozen teenagers at the Essex Agricultural and Technical School in Danvers, Massachusetts recently began having “mysterious” hiccups and vocal tics. Facebook is now considered a possible cause of these symptoms.
New Zealand sociologist Robert Bartholomew told the Atlantic that there has been a recent upticks in conversion disorder, where psychological trauma manifests in physical symptoms. This disorder then become "contagious" through a phenomenon known colloquially as "mass hysteria," or scientifically as mass psychogenic illness (MPI).
Atlantic writer Laura Dimon joins the show to talk about her piece, which looks at the connection between recent incidents of mass hysteria and the rise of social media.