This Book May Cause Side Effects

by Helen Pilcher Interesting read about the nocebo effect, essentially the evil twin of the placebo effect. The nocebo effect is the effect whereby if you tell people the side effects of medicines, they are more likely to get them. Or people who think they will age less well, get more ill in old age than those who don't think this. You can make people really physically ill by implanting thoughts in their head that they have a cancer or some other disease. You can even condition them, like a dog and the Pavlov effect, so that they become ill just by smelling lavender for example. The book shows how the internet has made these things worse. How the "mirror gene", which copies other people's expression in order to show empathy, used to have limited scope since you had to see people in person. With the internet this is no longer needed - the effect works at a distance through the screen. This has led to the term, Mass Psychogenic Illness or MPI. It was especially strong during Covid with…