The Next Pandemic: Beware the 'Woke Virus'

"I had been paying attention to a development in American universities, where a new discourse on social justice became prevalent in the 2010s," said study author Oskari Lahtinen, a senior researcher at the INVEST Research Flagship Centre at the University of Turku, who PsyPost quoted. 

Lahtinen continued: 

"While critical social justice (or intersectional or 'woke') discourse draws mainly from dynamics within American society, it has now surfaced in other Western countries as well. The arrival of a critical social justice (often called 'woke') discourse sparked much debate in Finnish media in the last couple of years."

"This debate was largely data-free and it could thus be considered a worthwhile question to study how prevalent these attitudes are. No reliable and valid instrument existed prior to the study to assess the extent and prevalence of these attitudes in different populations, so I set out to develop one."

The study surveyed 851 adults, primarily affiliated with the University of Turku. Following adjustments, the survey was expanded to over 5,000 participants via Finland's largest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat. 

This is where Lahtinen found a correlation between respondents agreeing with woke statements and problems with metal health. 

Take, for example, this statement: "If white people have on average a higher income than black people, it is because of racism," which showed the largest positive correlation with anxiety and depression. It also had the largest negative correlation with happiness.

Another finding of the study shows that wokeism is less widespread in Finland than it appears to be on media outlets and social media. The main finding is that the general population is still cautious about being a social justice warrior. 

Given the results of the study. We asked OpenAI's ChatGPT: "What are the most common treatments for anxiety and depression?" 

And, of course, the chatbot responded with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor medications, such as Celexa, Lexapro, Prozac, and Paxil. Big pharma secretly cheers as the woke mind virus spreads.

This article originally appeared on Zero Hedge