Blog Entry 2.2 Truman Syndrome

           The Truman Syndrome is a disorder that affects ordinary people with their every day lives. This syndrome can potentially make a person go lunatic and think that their lives are being tape like a reality TV show. I believe that any person who is easily influenced by reality shows, any sort of technology, or even pop culture, they are most likely to develop the “Truman Syndrome”.
           The article “Life Imitates art as Truman Syndrome diagnose” is mainly about a mental condition named “Truman Syndrome”, this mental condition was named after the movie “The Truman Show” starring Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank. This movie was about a guy who did not know that his life was being recorded, but later, he realizes that his life was staged as a reality show, and all his “friends” and family were playing actors all along. The Truman syndrome has symptoms of paranoia, delusions and having the feeling of being persecuted. Patients that suffer these symptoms tend to think that “their lives are being played out on a reality TV show”. This is why patients with this problem relate to “The Truman Show”.
          A person can develop the Truman syndrome if they are a target to self deception. If a person believes that their being hunted or in this case being recorded or subject to inappropriate drug use, they can be affect with the Truman syndrome. The author of the article says,” delusions can be a symptom of various psychiatric illnesses, as well as neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Some drugs can also make people delusional“. This disorder is significantly important because people can have these symptoms and slowly become delusional and lead to them having “Truman syndrome”. If they do develop this symptoms that it can gradually make them more crazy .They would believe that their lives are being tape like in the case of Truman Burbank. According to the article, Dr Joel Gold a physiatrist and his brother “learned about 50 more people with similar symptoms” It is most likely to say that if there’s 50 similar cases then it’s probable that there’s even more cases of this syndrome.

          This condition can be serious because people get influence very easily because of the internet. In such cases that they are likely to develop some of the symptoms like paranoia and have delusions. For instance, in the case of a patient in Australia, a girl believed that she was being recorded and was becoming a walking webcam, because she was addicted to the internet. According to the article, studies say that “Delusions tend to be classified by broad categories, such as the belief that one is being persecuted, but research has shown culture and technology can also affect them” This shows that this Australian girl develop these symptoms because of the consistence use of technology. The reason why there can be so many cases like these because technology can be a powerful tool that can easy influence people in a negative way.
　
The Truman syndrome can gradually make a normal person be convinced that there lives are being taped. The symptoms can go from bad to worse. If a person starts having delusions it can be worsen by paranoia. The Truman syndrome doesn’t just come out of nowhere. This syndrome is caused by many things, such as pop culture and technology and things that can easily influence us. Therefore people who are easily influenced by these things are most likely to be convinced that there life’s are like reality show.