Sideways

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Matthew Syed explores the ideas that shape our lives, making us see the world differently.

Best-selling author Matthew Syed explores the ideas that shape our lives with stories of seeing the world differently.

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Sideways: 32. The Social Contagion

32. The Social Contagion

BBC Radio 4 - Sideways, 32. The Social Contagion

Matthew Syed examines the strange spread of illness in a school in Yorkshire.

Examining the strange spread of illness through social networks, Matthew Syed explores how our desire to explain things can lead to us explaining them away.

On Armistice Day 2015, Mel gets a phone call from her son’s school, asking her to come in. When she arrives, she finds the car park filled with ambulances and police cars, emergency services buzzing around. 

It began with someone fainting in assembly and then, like dominoes, more teenagers began to collapse. Students were sent back to their classrooms, but the outbreak spread, with more and more people feeling dizzy and sick.

In this episode of Sideways, Matthew Syed tells the story of a strange fainting outbreak at a school and delves into these types of events which affect dozens - sometimes hundreds - of people. What looks unexplained turns out to have a fascinating psychological explanation. But, as Matthew discovers, sometimes our desire to explain things can lead to us explaining them away.

With Professor Sir Simon Wessely, psychiatrist and epidemiologist at Kings College, London and Dr Johanna Braun, artist and researcher at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna.

Presenter: Matthew Syed
Producer: Pippa Smith
Series Editor: Katherine Godfrey
Sound Design and Mix: Rob Speight
Theme music by Ioana Selaru
A Novel production for BBC Radio 4

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32. The Social Contagion

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