Over half of the videos on the ADHD on Tiktok contains incorrect information for science. And the more you look at them, the less you realize that they lie.
When it comes to health, Tiktok is a bad adviser. It would not be a great novelty, if it were not that this time, to end up under the lens of scientists, it was the way the social network faces The theme of the ADHD, the attention/hyperactivity deficit disorder, that many people tend to self-diagnosticate. And it is to be wondered if behind this trend there is also not the paw of not very true content shared online.
Based on the study, published on Plos Onemore than half of the most popular videos on Tiktok on ADHD theme spread content not in line with the guidelines of the medical communitya fact that could push some users to erroneously consider being affected by this disorder.
Submerged cases. ADHD is for Hyperatctivity disorder attention deficit: It is an evolutionary self -control disorder characterized by hyperactivity, poor ability to focus and complete a task, difficulty in controlling impulses and level of activity. Officially, it affects about 1% of the population, but psychologists think that real cases are in greater number. However, this does not mean that diagnosis can be done superficially.
The most viewed. A group of scientists from the University of British Columbia analyzed the 100 most popular videos with the hashtag #Adhd Present on Tiktok on January 10, 2023, when the first phase of the study was conducted. There is talk of videos that had collectively totaled 496 million views and on average 984,000 likes.
Verified: less than half. On average, each video contained three alleged “facts” on the ADHD. Scientists asked two psychologists if these hiring reflected the symptoms of the ADHD described in the DSM-5the latest edition of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, reference for the classification and diagnosis of these pathologies. Only 48.7% of the statements actually reflected the scientific guidelinesand more than two thirds of the videos attributed some alleged disorders to a condition not yet diagnosed with ADHD – while, for psychologists, these were manifestations of “normal human experience”.
Little critical sense. Also the evaluation What was really informative ofthat is, what he better explained what ADHD is, he varied a lot between users and psychologists. The authors of the study asked the two psychologists to evaluate on a scale from 0 to 5 which were the most accurate videos from a clinical point of view.
So they invited 843 students to give a accuracy score to the 5 videos considered better by the psychologists and the 5 worst. Psychologists have assigned to the videos deemed more accurate An average score of 3.6, the 2.8 boys. While to the less accurate videosthe boys gave an average score of 2.3 and the psychologists of 1.1.
“The amount of time spent looking at content related to the ADHD on Tiktok has increased the probability of advising them or identifying them as useful and accurate,” explains Vasileia Karasavva, author of the study.
And the other diseases? Now one wonders how much this type of mechanism also extends to other contents that concern health. Mental disorders could suffer particularly of this kind of disinformation, because the evaluation of symptoms passes more often for the simple observation of behaviors rather than from other more quantifiable clinical parameters.
The solution? Certainly not banned this type of content. Rather, Increase the number of clinically accurate videos on the netand encourage the exercise of the critical sense by users. Which should be made less passive in their consumption choices.
