r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 16d ago

Neuroscience ADHD misinformation on TikTok is shaping young adults’ perceptions. An analysis of the 100 most-viewed TikTok videos related to ADHD revealed that fewer than half the claims about symptoms actually align with clinical guidelines for diagnosing ADHD.

https://news.ubc.ca/2025/03/adhd-misinformation-on-tiktok/
27.8k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

179

u/OneEverHangs 16d ago

My immediate thought on seeing the title of this post. There are many profoundly glaring omissions from the DSM, e.g. no mention of heritability in autism spectrum disorder. The title is honestly just misleading when including claims “heavily associated with ADHD but not in the DSM for ADHD” would bring the rate above 50%. 

44

u/RepedeTheTerrible 16d ago

The DSM has many flaws, but heritability estimates for ASD (and several other conditions) are explicitly mentioned. They are in the paragraphs that follow the diagnostic criteria, which many providers forget to look at.

8

u/OneEverHangs 16d ago

True, and imprecisely put by me. But your point puts the issue with article headline’s narrow focus on diagnostic criteria into even worse light

56

u/financialthrowaw2020 16d ago

Yep. The DSM is the floor, and it's not even a very good floor. I also find articles like this very condescending. Patient-led Care is the future, patient-led research is miles ahead because it doesn't result in lies like this being published.

63

u/ranandtoldthat 16d ago

Indeed. Time blindness (or any difference in perception of time) isn't in the DSM. So, for a study like this anything mentioning the association of time blindness with ADHD would be tossed in one of the other buckets.

41

u/financialthrowaw2020 16d ago

Yes, and even worse, those who overcompensate for time blindness are seen as not having an issue at all. It's infuriating how the field treats these conditions.

13

u/lightningbadger 16d ago

Article aside, the mental illness side of tiktok/ insta is still a pit of misinformation and scamming

7

u/meeps1142 16d ago

This is absolutely true, but tiktoks about inattentive ADHD symptoms actually helped me realize that I might have it, as I'd only heard about the hyperactive symptoms. Went and got diagnosed as a result

2

u/lightningbadger 16d ago

Thing is I've had it my whole life and whilst some of the content is correct, a lot of it is eye Rolling inducing, and somehow always ends in someone trying to sell me a book

3

u/financialthrowaw2020 16d ago

Again, that argument loses water when articles like this paint legitimate symptoms as misinformation.

5

u/LittleMsSavoirFaire 16d ago

Doctors generally want you to come to them for the magic insight of diagnosis. They get exceptionally pissy when you're like, "yeah, I've got this, this and this, I just need you to sign off on it." Yeah, you went to school for 12 years bro, but I've got my lived experience and a working knowledge of the risk of confirmation bias. Come on, we've only got ten minutes for my $30 copay. Let's move this along.

16

u/financialthrowaw2020 16d ago

They went to school for 12 years and yet never learned how to deal with informed patients who already know what's wrong with them. It sucks.

6

u/Coal_Morgan 16d ago

I've never had that problem with my Doctor thankfully.

I walk in say I have X symptoms and think it's this. She says 'Okay, those symptoms are correct for that but could also be these 3 things. Let's test for your suspicion first since you probably dug into it. If that fails we'll move on.'

Or she says 'That could be true about your knee but this is the scary thing I'd like to eliminate first since it's time sensitive and then we'll check what you believe it is.'

Now that I'm squarely middle aged I see her a lot more and appreciatte how she does things.

5

u/financialthrowaw2020 16d ago

It sounds like you hit the jackpot of doctors