In my capacity as amateur psychotherapist to the blogerati, I have discovered a new raft of complaints as social media addicts adapt to the demands of new technologies and fluctuating social structures. The syndromes identified include:

Comment Guilt

Patients complain of an overwhelming regret that they are not commenting more on other people’s blogs, and ‘engaging with the online community’. Feelings of worthlessness and frustration.

RSS Reader Sisyphus Complex

Sisyphus was a mythological king punished cursed to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll down again, and to repeat this throughout eternity. Much like these patients who are cursed to spend a morning checking their RSS reader, only to find there are still “8,978 posts unread”.

Twitter Rage

Symptons include extreme psychopathic episodes directed at microblogging services. Triggers range from service outage to time delay between tweets being sent to mobile and appearing on twitter client. Also triggered by incessant noise pollution from tweet alerts on multiple devices.

Twitterhoeia

Uncontrollable urge to share most mundane experiences – or, more commonly, lack of experiences – with Twitter followers. Generally involves consumption of food.

Six Degrees of Separation Syndrome

Patient believes it possible to be only one ‘friend’ removed from anyone else in the world. Compulsively identifies people with similar interests or friends and adds them across multiple social media tools. May become enraged if Friend Request is not reciprocated. See also: Zombie Wars Complaint.

Plugin/Update Confusion

Patient becomes disorientated after spending hours configuring plugins or upgrades. Heightened awareness of pointlessness of own existence.

FOOcamp Anxiety

Sufferers complain of not being on the select list of invitees to a social media event. Do not respond well to reassurances that “there is another one on next week, on the same subject. With the same people.” Become obsessive about obtaining invite to next year’s event. Confusion about reasons for other people being invited. May experience paranoid delusions.

UPDATE: Four new syndromes discovered.

Please Digg this blog post if you exhibit any symptoms

This post is part of a Carnival of Journalism, this month hosted by Yoni Greenbaum

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