Back in college, I was walking through a dark part of the campus one night and a homeless (?) woman emerged from the shadows, looked at me, and said, "There are cameras everywhere." She was a perfect caricature, and she got me wondering about what paranoid schizophrenics were paranoid about before the widespread use of radio, tv, video, and other forms of electromagnetic radiation. I'm still not sure -- were there delusions about the King and other nobles controlling medieval peasants' lives?

But today, via MindHacks, I read this paper on Internet-centered delusions. "In one case, a patient began to have paranoid thoughts and used an internet search engine to investigate suspicions about an ingredient on a chewing gum packet." It is good to see the crazies keeping up with the times; oddly, the researchers find some hope in the internet-ness of the delusions: "given the rich sources of information available, they may be well suited to treatment with cognitive behavioural therapy." Happily ever after.