Comment by pezzana

> But in fact I had not intended to cancel Harris; I hadn’t intended anything at all. I would have attacked him, physically, had he been present, over a pure delusion, which I say with shame I can’t put into words. But I was not thinking that I would hurt his reputation. I was not thinking of cause and effect in any conventional way. I was not in a mental state where I was capable of understanding long-term consequences. Once again, I will be accused of saying that I bear no responsibility for what happened, but that’s not what I’m saying or have ever said. I am saying that it is a lie to say that I had a particular outcome in mind because I was operating under the antilogic of psychosis. I know because I’m me and I was there. I’m sorry if this is inconvenient for your efforts to develop simplistic moral readings about what happened, but I assure you my psychotic disorder is harder on me than it is on you. Forgive me if I’m angry, but it is incredible the number of people who believe that their understanding of neurology and psychiatry and psychology is so complete that they can decide unilaterally for the human race that “mental illness doesn’t do that.” You can make whatever moral judgments about me you like. You have no idea what was happening in my brain and no right to speak as if you do.

Social media are clearly magnifying the negative consequences of mental health issues. The problems the author describes are compounded by the fact that many other people know what happened.

What I'm curious about, though, is the opposite. To what extent are social media increasing the severity of mental health issues themselves? I can imagine a kind of positive feedback loop, with social media triggering aspects of an illness, and acting out through social media amplifying the damage caused.