For all of the cat videos and spicy GIF’s tech actors have brought into the world, there’s no denying that being very online hasn’t been the best thing for anyone’s mental health. We’re anxious and angry from our time spent on social platforms, we’re overwhelmed by our email inboxes, and the depressingly common headlines about tech companies’ hellish behavior have left a lot of us, well, depressed.
In my case—and maybe yours, too—things stop there: a general sense of “uggghhhh.” Not everyone is so lucky. More and more, we’re seeing people’s despair over our boring dystopia coalesce into actual phobias: a specific breed of anxiety disorder that’s intense enough to keep a person from actively living an unimpeded life.
While certain tech-fears haven’t made it into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the core reference book mental health professionals use to diagnose their patients), some psychology experts are pushing to change that down the road. In the meantime, feel free to take a shot every time you diagnose yourself with any of these fun phobias.
