Fellow TikTok addicts—before you let the soothing passivity of an auto-populating feed lull you into a trance, consider the findings of a new study by healthcare company PlushCare.
The study extracted and transcribed 500 TikTok videos under the hashtags #mentalhealthadvice and #mentalhealthtips, which had a collective 25 million views. A network of doctors reviewed them and found a snarled web of misinformation, inaccuracy, and damaging advice that doesn't necessarily appear as such to the average viewer.
Meanwhile, though, people are increasingly leaning on social media for "free" advice (in exchange for providing data), since an hour of therapy costs $100 to $200, on average, according to PlushCare. Since the pandemic began, the company says, social media posts containing the term “mental health” grew by 80.53%.
The results of the study are terrifying. The biggest issue is misleading information, of which a strong majority of videos (83.7%) contain. The study characterized a video as misleading if it meets any of these three criteria: The advice is inaccurate or potentially damaging, the host is unqualified and does not include a disclaimer, or the video encourages self-diagnosis. The most problematic videos pertained to ADHD (100% found misleading), bipolar disorder (94.1%), and depression (90.3%).
Accuracy is another major problem, with only 54.4% of videos determined to be correct. The others were either straight-up wrong or potentially damaging. The most concerning area is trauma, with only one-third of videos deemed accurate (33%). Since an individual's experience with trauma varies widely, a platform such as TikTok, where users seek to amplify messages to as many people as possible, is particularly ill-suited. While videos on ADHD were found to be the most misleading, they were also the most accurate—but it's a low bar, at only 54.5% accuracy.
A staggering 91% of mental health videos featured people who do not have licensing or qualifications, yet only 1% mentioned this. PlushCare notes that even content from licensed professionals should be taken as broad educational material, not as a substitute for therapy.
Delaying treatment by watching TikTok videos can have devastating affects. PlushCare says that a UK study by Royal College of Psychiatrists found that 43% of adults with poor mental health say long waits for treatment worsened their conditions, and many people have to wait more than 12 weeks to start treatment.
It's easy to see why online videos are an attractive option, but it's important to know the risks of consuming content that's simply fed to you by an algorithm.