I made the tragic mistake of clicking on an article about the next generation of Schizophrenia drugs designed to help people with serious mental illness overcome their delusions and paranoia without many of the traditional side-effects of Schizophrenia drugs – namely the withdrawal from daily life and uncontrolled body movements.

Now I’m being followed around the internet with ads with creepy faces on toasters and refrigerators saying, “Know the Sneaky Signs of Schizophrenia”. The rather colorful and cute ads remind me of a psychedelic album cover from the late 1960s.  You know the kind of artwork you might enjoy when you are pretty darn stoned and looking for something to be tuned into.

The irony of it all is such targeted advertising is not only creepy and plays in one’s own paranoia, it actually is in many ways a realization of the modern suburbanite’s home, full of internet connected appliances, constantly beaming information over the internet, some that you consent to and find useful but much of which can be used for nefarious or even surveillance purposes by hackers or government agents if they actually found you to be of something of interest.

I don’t have Internet at home but I have been to plenty of homes where people have Amazon Echos and “smart” televisions and refrigerators with large displays that smile at you and try to be friendly in appearance, even if they are data collecting machines, mostly for innocent purposes like telling you when your toast is done on your cellphone, that and selling your data and marketing to you. I mean, the schizophrenic aren’t exactly wrong about where America is going these days in your typical suburban home.