Pokemon Contagion: Photosensitive Epilepsy or Mass Psychogenic Illness?
from Southern Medical Journal
Benjamin Radford, Center for Inquiry, Amherst, NY; Robert Bartholomew, PhD, Department of Psychology and Sociology, James Cook University of North Queensland, Australia
Abstract and Introduction
Abstract
We studied a reported illness outbreak occurring on December 16, 1997, involving more than 12,000 Japanese children who had various signs and symptoms of illness after watching an episode of a popular animated cartoon, Pokémon. While photosensitive epilepsy was diagnosed in a minuscule fraction of those affected, this explanation cannot account for the breadth and pattern of the events. The characteristic features of the episode are consistent with the diagnosis of epidemic hysteria, triggered by sudden anxiety after dramatic mass media reports describing a relatively small number of genuine photosensitive-epilepsy seizures. The importance of the mass media in precipitating outbreaks of mass psychogenic illness is discussed.
medscape.com
Stress frequently plays an important role in cases of mass hysteria, and Japanese youth are under tremendous academic and social pressures to achieve. Japanese schools in particular are notorious as stress-generating institutions, and students with low or mediocre grades have been known to kill themselves. The week that Pokémon episode 38 aired, many Japanese youths were preparing for high school entrance examinations and were therefore already under added pressure.
medscape.com
!!?? Doc |
