This novel aims to interrogate information technology not as an isolated social determinant of mental health, but a process and a medium of knowing, sense-making, relationship-building, and governance in the 21st century, that actively shape and structure our personal, political, economic, social, and health consequences.

    This novel was inspired by Marshall McLuhan’s prophetic perceptions on the complexity and perplexity of life in the age of electronic information, and operates at the intersection of public health, media studies, and art.

    This novel further hopes to combine the power of art, storytelling, first-hand ethnographic data in the form of interview quotations, and evidence-based research to provoke conversations and thoughts on how the digital medium of our time shapes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being by massaging the very way in which we receive and process information and experience our lived realities. Every piece of artwork and illustration is as intentional and deliberate as my written commentaries, if not more so. 

    Dissecting information technology’s influence on the existing domains of the socio-ecological model of health, including individuals, relationships, communities, and societies at large, this novel navigates how the fabrics of our minds and social connections are altered in the age of physical-virtual co-existence, and finally it invites us to think about how we can navigate such a space that has the same power to create chaos as much as the power to advance humanity and human health.