Mental health has always been a complicated topic, certain conditions are complex and hard for people to understand. This is in no way helped by the faking of, glamorization and romanticization of these conditions online. For years but especially with the growing popularity of Tik-tok, people with conditions like autism, tourettes, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, etc have had their symptoms faked and joked about by people desperate for attention and ignorant to the challenges the conditions bring.
Tik-Tok is a very popular app that allows for the quick output and intake of information, media of all topics is shared and accessed prominently via hash-tagged videos. In recent years, videos and hashtags involving major neurological conditions had much popularity. In 2022 alone, videos with these conditions had over 50 billion cumulative views. To find out more about this topic closer to home, I spoke with Ms.Nash, head of the S.T.E.P team, about her experience with this phenomenon.
“ I do recognize how talking about it has become more popular. There seems to not be as much of a stigma. “ she said.
Some scholars who have been studying this topic say that we are in a social media “ mental-health epidemic “ , in which TikTok users are not only now highly susceptibility to certain psychological and neurological conditions, but also it seems like anybody and everybody has them. This, coupled with the fact that it conceals those who already experience them, makes it hard to distinguish the latter with those who are faking it. Resulting in somewhat of a decharacterizing imposter syndrome culture for people dealing with mental illness.
“ There are alot of people who feel that they dont wanna talk about their mental health because of how they may be responded to. Seeing how others are treated can also be a deterrent. “ Nash added.
This brings us to the question of how we can combat such a destructive affect of social media effectively in a world where many people barely even pay attention to the actual professionals. The shortened videos have generated a shortened attention span in those who view them, as you have everything shoved at you instantly and there isn't a need to sit and actually absorb it.
“ With this generations attention span being so short, you only have brief excerpts of data on these conditions. Due to the shorter videos and the disconnect after a certain amount of time, it affects your understanding “
However, this shorter attention span is not the only thing we must solve. Many of these peoples own families willfully ignore their conditions under the pretense of “ That couldn't possibly be my child “ , because they either don't understand or don't CARE to understand what their child is experiencing.
“ When you think about how the systems are being portrayed, the negative symptoms are broadcast the most and it garners a negative stigma around those disorders “