TikTok and the Prevalence of Self-Diagnoses and Psychological Disorders Among Teen Users

The negative implications of social media use on teen mental health are well documented. The effects of TikTok, the world’s most popular social media platform, on the mental health outcomes of developing adolescents are an increasing concern. The biological and psychological changes occurring during puberty cause teenagers to seek greater and instant social gratification through a platform with a majority teen user base. Due to the app’s complex algorithm that pushes dangerous content to vulnerable teen users, its overly accessible nature, and the prevalence of digital social contagion on the app, TikTok poses a significant risk of promoting mental health disorders and self-diagnosing among its users. This study focuses on two main disorders that have garnered significant attention on the social media platform, Tourette’s Syndrome (TS) and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Despite the diseases’ rarity, there has been a marked influx of self-diagnosed teens on TikTok. As false self-diagnoses strengthen stigmas and stereotypes while delegitimizing those who actually have the disorder, the need to address this trend of teen self-diagnosing is further exacerbated. Some ways that this trend of teen self-diagnosing could be averted is through 1) limiting teen use of the app, 2) creating a better content filtering system, 3) providing professional checks on mental health content creators, and 4) considering the dimensional HiTOP diagnostics system over the categorical DSM-5. Further research on the full implications of the social media app on the mental health of teenage populations is needed.