The Big Issue: Your new book is called Notes on a Nervous Planet. Why is the world so anxious in 2018?
Matt Haig: I think there’s a link between capitalism, consumerism, a very highly technological society and mental health rates. Rates of anxiety are undeniably up, and rates of depression are rising depending on what studies you look at. If you look at things with visible signs, they’re the ones that are increasing more than others – self-harm, eating disorders, even things like schizophrenia. It’s predominantly rising amid millennials and teenagers, so we have to think some of these statistics could be to do with changes in society.
And this is a global problem?
If you look at an individual, if a big change happens, that will often be mentally unsettling. Obviously if the change is a negative one then we can understand that, but even if outwardly that change is positive – say the person wins the lottery or has a baby or gets a promotion – that too can lead to depression and anxiety. So my question is, what happens when a society undergoes massive upheaval and massive technological change? Is there a collective psychology? I think there is.
Who’s served by all this anxiety?
If we were happy with everything we’ve got then how are advertisers and marketers going to get us to spend money? Some marketing gurus work on the principle of fear, uncertainty and doubt and instil this into their brand strategy. You make people feel anxious about something, for example for an anti-ageing cream you have to make sure people are subconsciously worried about visibly ageing. Politicians play this game as well, it’s all about fear. It’s such a strange emotion, so they’ll ramp up any fear, whether it’s about immigration or terrorism. It’s not sex that sells any more, it’s fear.
It feels a bit like we’ve been caught on the hop by the rate of change.
Everything’s changing around us, but we’re not changing. We’re essentially a Neolithic cave people who’ve had the same brains and biology for 30,000 years. Eric Schmidt, the former head of Google, said the internet is the first invention of humanity that humans don’t understand. That’s kind of scary. We have this idea of progress but it’s always technological progress. We’re not in tune with ourselves as animals with circadian rhythms. I think there’s a fundamental arrogance with humans as a species. We feel like we’re the most intelligent species on Earth because every measure tests animals on how human-like they are. If an orangutan can do a painting it’s more intelligent than a whale. But a whale is perfectly good at being a whale.
So how does social media fit into all this?
Because it’s new and only really took off in the last decade we’re only just realising the full implications. If you look at it from outer space and an alien’s perspective they’ll just be seeing this connected world of hot anger where people are sort of mirroring each other. The amount of times I’ve been arguing with someone with a flag avatar in Texas in a different political world and belief system – we’re both convinced we’re the right one and feeling stressed and angry and anxious. You sometimes don’t even have to read the words, you can almost scroll through Twitter and sense the anger or outrage. That’s one of the reasons for the title [of the book]. It’s not just that we’re all nervous, it’s that the world itself is a kind of nervous system and we’re all connected.
Do you have any thoughts on young people and social media?
When we’re younger and we’re not yet fully formed in our identity we can be so bothered by other people’s opinions. The internet and the algorithms are designed for comparison, so we’re almost putting ourselves in a sort of stock market – where we’re the stock. The younger you are the unhealthier that’s got to be. The evidence is mounting that there are reasons to be cautious.
