ADHD Misinformation Is Common on TikTok. Here’s How to Spot It
With limited access to mental health care, people looking for answers about ADHD are turning to TikTok, where information is frequently misleading or inaccurate
mihailomilovanovic/Getty Images
On TikTok, videos about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) abound; it is consistently one of the most popular health-related topics on the app. People often share relatable content about their own experiences with the condition, and many adults report learning they had ADHD by watching these videos.
But misinformation about ADHD is also common, a group of psychology researchers reported on Wednesday in PLOS ONE. In the 100 most popular TikTok videos about the topic at the time of this study, only half of claims about symptoms reflected the core diagnostic criteria of ADHD, according to evaluations made by two clinical psychologists . The other half of the claims were largely overgeneralized, misleading or inaccurate but were often presented with confidence and without nuance.
The findings don’t mean these videos are intentionally misleading or even entirely unhelpful, but the researchers emphasize the need for caution in interpreting and internalizing them.
On supporting science journalism
If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
“These videos have an incredible reach and are very popular,” says the new study’s lead author Vasileia Karasavva, a Ph.D. student in clinical psychology at the University of British Columbia. “What I think our study tapped into is that people are struggling, and people are trying to understand themselves better” in the context of ADHD, she says. But getting support through the mental health care system is onerous and expensive, she notes—and this drives people to seek information on social media, where it can be difficult to assess whether what they’re learning is supported by clinical experience and research.
Karasavva and her colleagues evaluated the top 100 videos under TikTok’s #ADHD tag on January 10, 2023. The study co-authors, including two psychologists with at least 20 years of experience in diagnosing and treating ADHD, then evaluated the videos’ many claims about symptoms and treatment. The researchers found that 55.6 percent of claims about ADHD treatments weren’t empirically supported and that 51.3 percent of claims about symptoms did not reflect a core diagnostic ADHD symptom as specified by the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).
Of those noncore symptom claims, only 5.6 percent referred to issues that are associated with ADHD, such as working memory problems, based on empirical research. Most referred to symptoms that are associated with other conditions—or, in the case of 68.5 percent of these claims, that are more reflective of what the study’s clinicians deemed “normal human experience.” For example, frequently bumping into furniture, listening to the same songs over and over or having a sweet tooth were commonly presented as indications of ADHD in the videos. But they are not, Karasavva points out.
“You can sometimes find a grain of truth” in these associations, says Lorenzo Lorenzo-Luaces, a psychologist at Indiana University Bloomington, who studies online misinformation but was not involved in the new paper. But these often “loose connections,” which are typically based on people’s personal experiences, can be overgeneralized. Misinformation research shows that people are more likely to believe claims to which they are repeatedly exposed—whether they trust the source at the time or not—he adds.
Some of the noncore symptoms presented as ADHD indicators might also reflect active areas of scientific debate, Lorenzo-Luaces says. For example, problems with emotional regulation are increasingly recognized as a common experience among people with ADHD but aren’t a part of the official diagnostic criteria.
The videos often lacked nuance in presenting symptoms, however, the researchers found. Only 4 percent of the videos acknowledged that the symptoms they mentioned don’t apply to everyone with ADHD, and even fewer mentioned that people without ADHD might experience those symptoms, too. In videos where people recounted their own personal experience, this lack of nuance was less concerning to the researchers. But in others, information was presented as blanket fact. For example, one video about habit formation began with a creator saying, “Just a quick reminder that anything you do with ADHD has a 100 percent relapse rate.” Difficulty forming habits isn’t necessarily associated with ADHD, the researchers say, and such absolute statements have the potential to mislead or even harm people who are trying to learn about themselves.
A very high level of confidence like this can be a red flag that someone is providing exaggerated or inaccurate information about ADHD, Karasavva says. A clear financial incentive can be another warning sign. The team found that 50 percent of the creators of the most popular videos were directly soliciting donations or selling products or services, such as fidget spinners, workbooks or coaching services.
“We still think that, for a huge chunk of [creators], their intentions were pure,” Karasavva says. But online platforms often incentivize creators to post quick and entertaining videos—and to do so frequently—which “might create some barriers to making content that is very well researched and has nuance.”
If someone wants to know more about what ADHD is and how it might appear in their life, Karasavva recommends talking to an expert mental health provider. But she also highlights that obtaining a diagnosis can be an onerous, time-consuming, expensive and complicated process that can be much harder for people with ADHD to navigate.
And this process can be worse for people in historically underdiagnosed groups because many ADHD diagnostic criteria and treatments were developed based on how the condition appeared in white male children. “People of color and women have been missed by this diagnosis. So I’m not faulting anyone who is like, ‘I don’t trust the system because the system wasn’t built for me,’ Karasavva says. “They’re not wrong about that.”
People will continue to rely too heavily on social media for key mental health information until care is more accessible and equitable, she adds: “Nothing will change if the system doesn’t change and become more accessible to people who need support,” Karasavva says.
