If you spend enough time on Instagram or TikTok, you could be convinced that you have ADHD. Or autism, or a personality disorder, or depression, or anxiety. You may learn you have an insecure attachment style, too, whether it’s anxious or avoidant. Short-form content has led to an increase in inaccurate self-diagnosis, and we need to look at why it’s happening.
The Positive Aspects of Increased Access to Information
A lot of good has come with increased awareness of and access to mental health information. It has lowered stigma, encouraging people to seek help from their support system or professionals. It has helped people better understand when their experience moves from a normal degree of difficult to a clinical-level issue that requires more intervention. People have found community with others who share diagnoses or have had similarly challenging experiences.
Further, some people have been able to identify a clinical problem that might otherwise have gone undiagnosed due to lack of awareness or access to healthcare. As people learn more about disorders and their criteria, they are better able to spot these clinical issues in themselves.
The problem is, people are also able to spot a clinical issue even when one doesn’t actually exist.
Without a better understanding of how diagnoses are determined and the specific criteria that need to be met, people are at risk of checking off a few symptoms and labeling themselves with a disorder. But diagnosis can be quite complicated, as any therapist will tell you. There are rule-outs, comorbidities, thresholds for duration and severity, and distinguishing between what’s situational versus persistent.
Vague Descriptions Feel Personally Relatable
Do you know why people believe their daily horoscopes? It’s because of the Barnum effect (also known as the Forer effect) — our tendency to see vague, widely applicable statements as deeply resonant and personal.
When you read, “You’ve been feeling uncertain and are hesitant to take bold steps in an important relationship, but today you will gain clarity that shows you which direction to go in,” it’s hard not to identify with it. Almost everyone feels uncertain about a relationship on a daily basis and doesn’t take “bold” steps.
And, as we know from the idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy, if we believe something to be true, we might just make it that way. If you think you’ll be gaining clarity, you’ll look for it and find some insight or explanation that makes you think, “Aha, my horoscope was right! Now I know what to do in that relationship.” For example, a fight with your partner that day could convince you that maybe things are coming to an end, just as coming home to a thoughtfully prepared meal from your loved one could prove that you should invest more in the relationship.
The same is true for mental health disorders, especially when you read about the descriptions or symptoms on social media, where short-term content condenses incredibly complex concepts into bite-sized takeaways. Brief and largely applicable sentences feel true. And because they feel personally resonant, we’re at risk of drawing inaccurate conclusions from them.
For example, do these describe you?:
“I feel overwhelmed by everything I need to do, even the very small tasks. Something as simple as grabbing more paper towels can feel like a burden.”
“I can focus really well on things I like, but I struggle to stay on track when something feels boring or repetitive.”
“I have certain routines, just the way I like to do things, and I get stressed or irritated when my routines get disrupted.”
“I’m sensitive to loud sounds, especially when I’m already stressed.”
The statements above may feel like they describe you, because they probably describe everyone at least some of the time. Who doesn’t feel overwhelmed amid endless demands and never-ending to do lists? We all focus better on tasks we enjoy and struggle to maintain attention on boring ones. We all have routines that feel comforting — and it’s rare that people actually like loud noises, particularly when they’re already overstimulated.
Social Media Essential Reads
You can see how people can become convinced that they have a psychological disorder after reading brief social media posts that include vague statements like the ones above. Short-form content loses nuance, and the most engaging posts and reels distill complex diagnoses into relatable snippets. It’s easy to see yourself reflected in an Instagram post without realizing that almost everyone reading it will also feel it’s personally relatable.
Social media can reduce diagnoses to one-sentence descriptions that feel personally applicable and lead people to conclude they have a disorder. “If I can only focus on tasks that I find interesting, I must have ADHD,” or, “Since I dislike crowded places, I probably have social anxiety.”
Not All Unwelcome Experiences Are Symptoms
Social media has also contributed to a trend of people believing that any unpleasant experience is pathological. Our culture has forgotten that a lot of life includes discomfort and struggle, and that this is normal.
An uncomfortable experience isn’t automatically an indicator of a clinical issue. We can all get distracted, overwhelmed, tired, withdrawn, sensitive, or stressed. These aren’t symptoms but inevitable parts of the human experience.
Many symptoms of psychological disorders are extremes of otherwise normal feelings or behaviors and aren’t, in themselves, pathological. They only become problematic when they fall into a constellation of other issues (a clinical disorder’s criteria) and cause distress and an impairment in functioning.
The combination of vague and relatable descriptions of disorders along with our growing belief that all suffering can (and should) be solved has led to a culture of excessive self-pathologization. We are losing the ability to differentiate normal (albeit difficult) human experiences from genuine clinical problems. And so we may limit our own capacity for nuanced self-awareness, growth, and resilience.