Inside the “Truman Show” Delusion

What if “The Truman Show” were your life? That’s the delusion the psychiatrist Joel Gold observed in five patients at Bellevue Hospital, in New York. As cameras and technology continue to encroach on us, will this disorder, and others like it, become more common?

In this week's magazine, Andrew Marantz describes how paranoid delusions shift over time, with societal and technological developments eventually being reflected in psychosis. He writes,

Just as Times Square is a diversion for some people and a stressful place for others, the cyclopic camera above a laptop’s screen might, for a certain type of person, become a source of corrosive unease.

Visit the New Yorker video channel, featuring profiles, commentary, interviews, and more.