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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)

#261

Post by jquery »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #189
MichaelCollins wrote: post #126

It feels as though our society has collectively forgotten that mental illness can be socially transmissible. I remember in 00s there seemed to be mainstream acknowledgement and concern that anorexia and distorted perception of one's body can be socially transmissible, ripping through teen social cliches particularly, and could be spread through the internet by "pro-ana" websites and chat groups. I don't hear much abo…

The bar also got a lot lower than back then. You jump over the gaps in the tiles on the road? You must have OCD. You broke up with your bf/gf.. you must have depression. You're happy a bit? Bipolar disorder. You're a guy and play with a barbie... trans. Less horny, asexual. And let's not forget a bunch of adhd/autism and other disorders, when a kid gets bored in school. On the other hand, we have professionals (docto…

Your generalization OCD is very, very wrong. I can sadly speak from all-too-close experience that OCD is an absolutely crippling mental illness our society still does not take seriously enough. It’s still largely used as a punchline in popular culture and in social interactions.

Edit: I’m being told I misunderstood the parent comment but it appears to be claiming the bar is much lower now than in the past. Certainly skipping over sidewalk cracks isn’t OCD. The point of my comment is that when someone is diagnosed with OCD in 2022 by a professional, it’s generally for very serious reasons.

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

#262

Post by SQueeeeeL »

quasarj wrote: post #246
jnovek wrote: post #26

As an adult who struggles with ADHD that can be severely impairing, I’ve learned quite a few tricks from TikTok’s ADHD advocates. It’s definitely a coin with two sides. Edit: I’ve also learned to accept things about me that I can’t change. For example, I have a better outcome if I plan to be distracted rather than trying to fight my way through distraction.

I personally hate seeing all the ADHD stuff, I feel like most of those people are faking/wrong as well. But I don't know, maybe I just have ADHD? I just feel like they are always like "this is life with ADHD" and I'm like "what? that's just life? isn't that how everyone is?"

I think a counter argument that makes a lot of sense to me is that our modern society is so novel, interconnected, and overstimulating, that it makes sense the prevalence of ADHD and depression have increased massively, especially compared to the populations of 50 years ago.

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

#263

Post by collegeburner »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #257
JediLuke wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Men cry in the office too, but they're better at hiding it because the social expectations are different. A few times during crunches I've heard men sobbing in the restroom instead of at their desk. Men get told to 'man up', so they bottle it up or hide it.

counterpoint: no. i been in some pretty stressful environments and never reacted like that. same for most guys i know. maybe it's different where you are but i never seen it even in private like that or with close friends.

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

#264

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

anotherman554 wrote: post #239
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diagnoses are defined through research. The committee part is just about updating diagnostic manuals to reflect current consensus. New diagnoses need to be proven to be distinct entities(i.e not redundant) and clinically meaningful. And they specifically need to have a diagnostic test. Having blond hair has a diagnostic test, sure, but that diagnostic test does not in itself constitute a distinct, clinically useful d…

I do not agree. You can research how much of the population has blond hair, and how much this diverges from the "typical" hair color. But the decision to define or not define blond hair as a medical condition is a value call because the definition of a medical condition is ultimately that which people call a medical condition. And whether something is clinically useful isn't the standard for defining a condition, bec…

You can agree or disagree, but the fact is that diagnoses almost always include a mandatory requirement that the condition has a significant negative impact on the patient's life. It's not merely a value judgment, and it's definitely not an arbitray judgement. The AMA or the CDC can't just decide that blod hair is now a medical disorder for no other reason than it would be helpful to your strawman. Clearly a lot of research and deliberation goes into these decisions. That's why new revisions of the DSM literally take years to complete.

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

#265

Post by madamelic »

jdthedisciple wrote: post #129
devmor wrote: post #37

My question is: Does this actually matter? Does this have a lasting impact or do the kids simply move on with no negative changes to their lives? I remember thinking a lot of dumb stuff as a teenager. Just because I thought it doesn't mean it was bad that I did.

It certainly matters: Many kids watching TikTok also start imagining wrong things about their sexuality. Apparently up to 25% of the upcoming zoomers identify as LGBTQ. Obviously, biological, empirical nonsense. Turns out most of it is absolute imagination yet many start to undergo hormone therapy etc immediately. There's a whole detrans movement of such folks who regret doing such, often irreversible, massive damage…

> Apparently up to 25% of the upcoming zoomers identify as LGBTQ. Obviously, biological, empirical nonsense.

Much lower than it probably is. Most people, by my estimate, aren't perfect 0 or 6 on the Kinsey scale [0]. The majority of people are somewhere between 1 and 5. It's still a bimodal distribution but I'd estimate most people aren't purely gay or straight.

Sexuality is similar to mental illness in my opinion (STAY WITH ME!), most people have sub-clinical cases of lots of mental illnesses, maybe a facet or two due to maladaption because of being a human (sexually wise: having a fetish, having a 'thing' for secondary sex characteristics of their sex, etc) but it doesn't cross a threshold where it becomes behaviourly significant.

Ask someone "If you had to sleep with someone of the same sex, who would it be?" If they have an honest answer of a specific person, they aren't _technically_ straight.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale

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

#266

Post by margalabargala »

jquery wrote: post #261
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bar also got a lot lower than back then. You jump over the gaps in the tiles on the road? You must have OCD. You broke up with your bf/gf.. you must have depression. You're happy a bit? Bipolar disorder. You're a guy and play with a barbie... trans. Less horny, asexual. And let's not forget a bunch of adhd/autism and other disorders, when a kid gets bored in school. On the other hand, we have professionals (docto…

Your generalization OCD is very, very wrong. I can sadly speak from all-too-close experience that OCD is an absolutely crippling mental illness our society still does not take seriously enough. It’s still largely used as a punchline in popular culture and in social interactions. Edit: I’m being told I misunderstood the parent comment but it appears to be claiming the bar is much lower now than in the past. Certainly…

I think you may have misread the comment you replied to.

The claim being made, is that in times past, the bar for being diagnosed with something like OCD was much lower than today, causing people to consider mundane things as symptoms.

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

#267

Post by albrewer »

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.

On the flip side, I asked my psych to take an ADHD test because I found the stuff at /r/ADHDmemes consistently hit far too close to home to be a coincidence.

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

#268

Post by MichaelCollins »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #253
bpodgursky wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allowing teens to spread mental illness on social media was less profitable in the 00s. There was a low cost to shutting down pro-ana tumblr accounts. Now, those sites are worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Can't afford to do the right thing.

> Now, those sites are worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Can't afford to do the right thing. Which sites? Tumblr was started in 2007 - it wasn't very big until 2009. I'm not sure why it's even in your comparison. The only company worth hundreds of billions of dollars remotely relevant is Facebook and - possibly - TikTok. Are you implying that the majority of their business is promoting teen mental illness and ea…

Facebook was one of the websites being criticized for hosting pro-ana content in the late 00s and early 2010s. Facebook, Myspace, Tumblr, Xanga, Livejournal all caught criticism for this; of those only Facebook remains and has arguably lost the demographic of users most susceptible to pro-ana propaganda.

The new 2010s-present wave of social media seems to have largely avoided this sort of controversy. All the focus is now on the way these websites/apps can indoctrinate people into political extremism, but little attention seems to be given to [other sorts of] socially transmissible mental illness.

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

#269

Post by Karunamon »

collegeburner wrote: post #251
woweoe wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TikTok skews female very heavily.

i always thought the same for a while but apparently its not as much any more. my guess is kinda like ig theyre more likely to make content and post vs guys so we see them more. they do seem to be more active users by a huge margin tho.

Keep in mind it's going be very hard to get a "general" read on the kind of content TikTok has as a whole since it is extremely personalized for every user.

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

#270

Post by LocalPCGuy »

nonameiguess wrote: post #242
giraffe_lady wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, their use for that is so common I assumed it was a real effect. People who use them that way definitely think it helps. Prescription stimulants are also pretty powerful mood boosters though so I imagine it's very easy to assume you're smarter while on them just because they make you feel great. Anyway thanks for the info, definitely upends an assumption I'd had for years.

I was a biology major several decades ago now, which is a major dominated by extremely competitive pre-med students trying to get into Harvard Medical School. Taking speed during finals week was extremely common. I only tried it once personally, and I can't say it helped me concentrate better, because I could already concentrate perfectly fine to begin with. But I could not concentrate for 16-20 hours a day, every da…

I think this is a good caveat and not something I've seen called out in the studies I've seen.
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