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TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

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Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#61

Post by freebreakfast »

jnovek wrote: post #53
freebreakfast wrote: post #46

I recently discovered "systems" people via Reddit (r/SystemsCringe) will searching for systems engineering. The core belief seems to be that the individual has "multiple people" living in the same body. They've devised a whole language for talking about it as well[0]. This reminds me of the "otherkin" fad that occurred primarily on Tumblr about a decade ago[1]. It was where teenagers believed themselves to not be hum…

For the Otherkin stuff, did you mean Tumblr? I’ve often seen TikTok described as the new Tumblr.

I did. Corrected.

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#62

Post by AlexandrB »

nemo44x wrote: post #15

For all of human history across every culture, parents would do what they could to keep their kids away from “bad influences”. You move to certain areas, go to certain places, are members of certain organizations etc. which serve to socialize your kids with kids from families that have shared values. You don’t talk to strangers. With the internet and especially media like TikTok parents are exposing their kids to unt…

> For all of human history across every culture, parents would do what they could to keep their kids away from “bad influences”.

Not to be pedantic, but is this actually true? Parents used to send their kids to work in the factory at 10. Was that "keeping them away from bad influences"?

If you're saying something is "across every culture", I think some citation is required.

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#63

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #41
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the internet and especially media like TikTok parents are exposing their kids to untold bad influences Some parents. Elite schools in Manhattan and Palo Alto send home fliers that parents (or at least those I know) read. Screen time of all types is monitored. And the children have a somewhat hilarious self-protecting pride in their control over digital intake. (Most of them. Thinking of two brothers, one who e…

You don't have to be elite to be an involved parent. You just have to be involved. I have 2 so I know how easy it is to break out the digital babysitter, but even with the small amount I give mine I can see the influence it has, and I don't like it. I grew up with unfettered access to the internet before social media and now see how much it damaged me, I can only imagine what it is doing to kids today.

> don't have to be elite to be an involved parent

100% agree. Just pointing out there are parts of society where this is being messaged and socially enforced. So it isn’t a situation where we don’t know what to do. It’s one where we’re being selective about where we give a shit.

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#64

Post by NamTaf »

trh0awayman wrote: post #24

Young people on the internet have been doing this since at least the 90s, though it's definitely become more popular (mainly due to internet culture spreading to normal society). Just think back to the LiveJournal/MySpace era - it was the same exact thing back then. All the kids that I knew who did this have grown up to be completely normal adults.

The difference is that hyperpowerful social media algorithms have weaponised it. Kids in the 90s had to actively seek out whatever propaganda or whatnot that they wanted to read about. If you were a pissed-off goth kid wanting to read how to bomb something, you had to genuinely work to find shit like that.

These days, you linger on an auto-playing video too long (that is quite possibly intentionally engineered to bait you in) and suddenly the algorithm gets a lock on you and absolutely rams more of that shit down your throat.

It's not even just propaganda either. The exact same cycle is what's at play here with preying on children's weaknesses. Mental health, body image, etc. etc. can all be weaponised the same way. And kids are espeically susceptable to it given the age they tend to start getting on social media is precisely also the age where they feel most socially awkward and trying to find their identity in the world.

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#65

Post by api »

irjustin wrote: post #58
nemo44x wrote: post #15

For all of human history across every culture, parents would do what they could to keep their kids away from “bad influences”. You move to certain areas, go to certain places, are members of certain organizations etc. which serve to socialize your kids with kids from families that have shared values. You don’t talk to strangers. With the internet and especially media like TikTok parents are exposing their kids to unt…

> It’s no wonder so many kids think they have mental disorders or any of the other mind viruses going around. Every older generation has said this about the incoming generation - without fail. I'll take the flip side. There are so many great social medias about loving yourself, loving your kids, crying is okay for dudes, and men don't have to be a certain way (i'm a dude). It's okay not to know how to change your oil…

I guess how it turns out for your kids will depend on which rabbit hole the social media algorithm stuffs them down.

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#67

Post by [deleted] »

washbrain wrote: post #51
freebreakfast wrote: post #46

I recently discovered "systems" people via Reddit (r/SystemsCringe) will searching for systems engineering. The core belief seems to be that the individual has "multiple people" living in the same body. They've devised a whole language for talking about it as well[0]. This reminds me of the "otherkin" fad that occurred primarily on Tumblr about a decade ago[1]. It was where teenagers believed themselves to not be hum…

TikTok wasn't around a decade ago. I also suspect that systems cringe might not be the best source for understanding plural folks... It might be worth trying to understand before casting aspersions.

[deleted]

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#68

Post by madeofpalk »

overthemoon wrote: post #5

Tik Tok is the reason I've been told several times I have ADHD. Pretty sure I don't! This phenomenon is so infuriating. The only half-convincing defense I've heard of it is that it could, maybe, theoretically, disseminate information about illnesses to people who don't have the money to see a professional, but the other effects are so much worse it doesn't seem worth it.

It's not just related to tiktok, but there definitely was a strong fetisisation of ADHD going on which seemed to peak in 2020-2021 (but still there).

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#69

Post by giraffe_lady »

DoughnutHole wrote: post #20
jrm4 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tiktok and pop-culture generally make me very skeptical on "ADHD", the so-called "spectrum" and "neurodivergence" generally. I'm not saying these things don't exist, but much of it seems very difficult to falsify -- which needs to be the gold standard of determining these sort of things; e.g. "By what process can someone reasonably determine that they are NOT neurodivergent?"

Well the problem with ADHD is the same problem of pretty much all psychological disorders - diagnosis is only ever really fuzzily falsifiable. You get diagnosed with it if you tick enough of the boxes of behaviours/dysfunctions associated with it - you can fall short of a diagnosis by one behaviour and still be in a very similar condition to a diagnosed person, or tick enough boxes but fall short based on the diagnos…

I can credibly claim stimulant treatment for adhd saved my life so I'm not at all skeptical of its value in this context.

But doesn't everyone respond extremely well to stimulants? They're some of the most common recreational drugs and neurotypical people seek them out for performance enhancement on cognitive tasks.

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#70

Post by woodruffw »

freebreakfast wrote: post #46

I recently discovered "systems" people via Reddit (r/SystemsCringe) will searching for systems engineering. The core belief seems to be that the individual has "multiple people" living in the same body. They've devised a whole language for talking about it as well[0]. This reminds me of the "otherkin" fad that occurred primarily on Tumblr about a decade ago[1]. It was where teenagers believed themselves to not be hum…

I think there are more charitable ways to look at this. Even if you doubt that some of these people don’t have the disorder they’ve self-diagnosed themselves with (thinking you’re a dragon is an extreme one), it’s clear that something about the situation requires professional evaluation.

That, in turn, is made more difficult by clinical perceptions of MPD: many psychiatrists are openly skeptical that it’s a “real” disorder, meaning that they’re less likely in turn to be empathetic towards a prospective patient who claims (perhaps incorrectly, but perhaps not!) that they have MPD.

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