The Mental Forecast tracks how economic, digital, and political systems shape mental health, beliefs, societies, and global disorder. An independent epistemic commons for scientific watchdogs, critical essays, and books.

epistemic

commons

LATEST

SCIENTIFIC WATCHDOG

THE SCREEN WE LOOK THROUGH ALSO TARGETS US

Oct. 2026 We still call the screen a window. Yet before an image appears, most of what could have appeared has been eliminated. On YouTube, one model reduces millions of videos to a few hundred; another orders them according to how long each is expected to keep the person watching (Covington, Adams, and Sargin 2016). What reaches the eye is not an open world but a field narrowed and arranged to produce a response. Looking through the screen and being targeted through it occur

THE MENTAL FOOTPRINT

IMAGES DESTROY. Scopic Colonialism and the Violence of the Gap

Oct. 2026 What does an image demand from your body before you have decided whether you like it? A face fills the phone, and your hand moves toward your own cheek. Nothing has been said, yet something needs correcting. Further down, a couple embraces in a kitchen where nobody seems to have washed a dish. Your life has dishes, fatigue, a lover who sometimes wants silence; now these ordinary conditions begin to look like evidence against it. The image has supplied the terms of c

THE MENTAL FOOTPRINT

WHEN THE WORLD MUST ARRIVE PRE-ADJUSTED

Oct. 2026 The headphones erase the neighbor, the feed selects the enemy, the application counts sleep while the deadline dismantles it. Everything protects us. Everything arrives with settings. Meanwhile the body, this badly managed province, continues to sweat, age, hesitate and desire at the wrong hour. Biological alienation begins when the manufactured environment overrides the organism’s capacity to establish its own rhythms. One adapts—splendidly. One answers faster, mea

THE MENTAL FOOTPRINT

Habit-forming dark patterns and how EU regulations fall short: the case of Apple’s iMessage colour-coding

Nam Phuong Ngo School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK Choice architecture design has become a defining feature of the digital economy, shaping how users interact with online platforms. Once designed to enhance usability, interface techniques now often exploit cognitive and emotional biases to steer behaviour – commonly known as dark patterns. While regulators increasingly recognise such practices, most legal frameworks still treat manipulatio

Dark Machinic Epistemology

ATTENTION IN THE WAITING ROOM

Oct. 2026 How many children must be assessed before their environment comes under scrutiny too? In England, around 270,000 young people awaited an ADHD assessment in December 2025, up from 21,000 in April 2019—nearly thirteenfold. The interim report distinguishes this surge from an equivalent rise in ADHD, without settling the contributions of diagnostic catch-up, service backlogs, and worsening difficulties. It acknowledges rising reported symptoms and no recent prevalence d

Young generation

CAN A STUDY LOCATE A PROBLEM IN THE INDIVIDUAL SIMPLY BECAUSE IT CANNOT ACCESS EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY?

Oct. 2026 Published in 2026 in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, Dorrestein, Nutley, and Thorell’s study of 1,820 Swedish high school and university students finds that motives—escaping worries, comparing oneself with others, compensating for unmet social needs—and content focused on appearance or negativity, rather than screen time, account for 33–40% of the variance in psychosocial problems. Its stated conclusion: move beyond screen time and target u

Critical Studies

WHAT AI ERASES WHEN IT REWRITES

Sept. 2026 How much can we trust AI-generated knowledge of the world—and the concepts we use to understand it—when it draws on texts already reshaped by other AI systems? A paper published on August 24 in Nature Human Behaviour brings together three studies and over 880,000 texts (Sourati et al. 2026). In the rewriting experiments, models largely preserve the content but reduce stylistic diversity. Reported statistically significant reductions in the variance of linguistic co

Dictatorship Through Freedom and the Synapses

Liviu Poenaru, Dark Machinic Epistemology (forthcoming) This regime has no flag, no single party and no leader required to appear on a balcony. It has an interface. The word dictatorship may seem excessive if understood only in its constitutional sense: elections still take place, speech still circulates and no digital apparatus holds a monopoly on violence. Yet the term becomes precise when it names a structure of command that progressively narrows the possibility of disobed

Books

Digital Identities, AI Ethics, and Mental Health. Impacts of Technology on Cyber Behaviors and Personality Traits

Sept. 2026 This highly topical book provides an integrated framework for understanding how artificial intelligence, personality traits, gender, and cultural contexts shape youth digital engagement and mental health outcomes. Grounded in cyberpsychology and extensive empirical research, AI ethics, and developmental psychology, this book addresses the urgent need for evidence-based approaches to supporting young people's well-being in an increasingly AI-mediated digital world.

Books

Political News Avoidance, Selective Exposure, and Misinformation

Sept. 2026 Drawing on primary empirical research, this book considers the democratic outcomes of political news avoidance, selective news exposure, and misinformation. Political information environments across democracies are in flux, fundamentally changing the way citizens gain political information and leading to widespread concerns about consequences for democracy. From selective media use leading to increased attitudinal polarisation, to declining trust in legacy media an

Books

Untitled - July 30, 2026 at 18.10.38(2).png

JOIN
the
LABORATORY

Whether you are an academic, journalist, practitioner, or simply a curious individual seeking to make sense of the forces shaping the modern world, THE MENTAL FORECAST offers an inclusive platform for inquiry and exchange. By uncovering the unseen dynamics of cybercapitalism, the platform inspires critical awareness and collective agency, encouraging transformative solutions to the challenges of our time.

OUR PUBLICATIONS ARE FREE AND OPEN-ACCESS.

ANNUAL PUBLICATION INITIATIVE: CURATING CRITICAL REFLECTIONS

In its commitment to fostering rigorous interdisciplinary inquiry and making cutting-edge research accessible to a broader audience, THE MENTAL FORECAST is proud to launch an annual publication initiative. This project will result in the publication of a book each year, compiling a selection of the most insightful and thought-provoking articles contributed to the platform. By consolidating these works into a single volume, THE MENTAL FORECAST seeks to deepen the global dialogue on cybercapitalism, mental health, and the economic unconscious, offering readers a comprehensive resource that captures the evolving landscape of these critical issues.

GO FURTHER

epistemic

commons

THE SCREEN WE LOOK THROUGH ALSO TARGETS US

IMAGES DESTROY. Scopic Colonialism and the Violence of the Gap

WHEN THE WORLD MUST ARRIVE PRE-ADJUSTED

Habit-forming dark patterns and how EU regulations fall short: the case of Apple’s iMessage colour-coding

ATTENTION IN THE WAITING ROOM

CAN A STUDY LOCATE A PROBLEM IN THE INDIVIDUAL SIMPLY BECAUSE IT CANNOT ACCESS EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY?

WHAT AI ERASES WHEN IT REWRITES

Dictatorship Through Freedom and the Synapses

Digital Identities, AI Ethics, and Mental Health. Impacts of Technology on Cyber Behaviors and Personality Traits

Political News Avoidance, Selective Exposure, and Misinformation

JOIN the LABORATORY

Help Dr. Said Build a Hospital and School in Zanzibar

JOIN
the
LABORATORY