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/
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u/Field_Sweeper 16d ago edited 16d ago

It's click bait. The more they relate to, with whatever they post, the more money they get from engagement.

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u/HenryDorsettCase47 16d ago

It’s also idiocy. Some people literally believe everything they see online except for the actual educational stuff because it causes cognitive dissonance with all of the dumb stuff they believe.

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u/imBobertRobert 15d ago

A few comments up someone's talking about a tik tok that's "if you inhale/exhale you might have..." like, if people can't tell that's a joke then there's a serious lack of critical thinking skills.

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u/SirPiffingsthwaite 16d ago

A lot of it is "engagement bait" too. Some tailor their content with completely made up stuff to appeal to the less cerebral, but also to enrage a fair chunk of people into commenting corrections.

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u/Ooji 16d ago

Eldermillennial is the biggest example of engagement bait, so many people make "correction" videos or reference him directly, which just drives his own engagement and gets him paid, so even negative criticism of his content is a positive feedback loop. It's a losing battle because the best method to stop it is to ignore it completely, but at the same time impressionable minds would see the lack of opposition to his ramblings as evidence that there's nothing to rebuke.

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u/SeekerOfSerenity 16d ago

I wonder how much of it is marketing for services that can connect you with doctors that can diagnose ADHD or for people offering "alternative" treatments (or even pharmaceutical manufacturers). 

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u/Field_Sweeper 15d ago

Most of it's even worse. Fake pseudoscience bs. You know. Just about anything that also has to say "these statements haven't been evaluated by the FDA". Because it's all nonsense. Supplements that supposedly work as good as medication but isn't medicine is a scam every single way you look at it.

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u/LazyLucretia 16d ago

It's internet in 2025, everything is bait.

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u/JackYaos 15d ago

Also it's idiotic on purpose, people correcting it in the comments is engagement

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u/Field_Sweeper 15d ago

Yup, same reason those game ads have people playing it terribly. Almost a dare to others to "do it right"

It's based on a little known thing called Engagement optimization. EOMM or Any other form of it, a patent by EA of all companies (gaming company if you aren't familiar).

They know from studies that you will have better and longer engagement (and therefore in most cases more likely to spend money etc) if the experience is less fulfilling and more frustrating. It's based on game theory, but it's driven many other facets of pretty much anything a consumer engages in that a company profits off of.