In this excerpt from "Bad Influence: How the Internet Hijacked Our Health," author Dr. Deborah Cohen explores the portrayal of ADHD on social media platforms like TikTok, showing the fine line between raising awareness and hijacking a health condition for engagement.
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Over the last few decades, the number of people going online for their healthcare needs has skyrocketed. Google receives hundreds of millions of health related search queries daily. Half of U.S. adults under 50 now get health and wellness information from podcasts or social media influencers.
In her book "Bad Influence: How the Internet Hijacked Our Health" (Oneworld Publications, 2026), author and journalist Dr. Deborah Cohen explores the impact social media, influencers, trends and tech are having on our health. She investigates how algorithms are pushing content that heightens concerns and potentially drives people away from traditional healthcare systems.
In this excerpt, Cohen looks at the portrayal of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on platforms like TikTok, where self diagnosis and the proliferation of "lesser known symptoms" as entertainment runs rife — but the reality of the condition is far more bleak.
"Despite it All" has been short-listed for the 2026 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize.
Many ADHD symptoms exist on a spectrum throughout the general population and identifying impairment and frequency of symptoms as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is a judgement call. These symptoms often overlap with anxiety, depression and learning disabilities. Responsible clinicians should rule out alternative explanations before diagnosing ADHD and prescribing medication.
This nuance sometimes goes out of the window when you go online. Viral videos on Instagram and TikTok list "common signs" of ADHD describing their impact on daily life. Megan McHugh, a UK DJ and radio host, is one content creator who has gone viral on TikTok after listing "lesser known" tell-tale signs of the condition with a video captioned: "Six ADHD behaviour traits you might not have known about." She cites overpromising and wondering: "Why the fuck can I not just say no?" "Your long-term memory is fucking shocking… You have some sort of subconscious tic, usually, whether it's pressing your lips or scrunching your nose," McHugh told her followers.
She's far from alone in sharing her experiences in this way. Others point to indicators of ADHD that include trouble getting up in the morning, problems choosing what to eat in a restaurant, missing deadlines, and being unable to finish a book.
A study by Vasileia Karasavva from the University of British Columbia and a team of researchers question the way symptoms are described on social media. When researchers examined the top 100 ADHD TikTok videos on a single day, 10 January 2023, clinical psychologists found only 48.7% of claims accurately reflected DSM-5 symptoms.
This social value can make diagnoses seem desirable, particularly on social media platforms.
Of those inaccurate claims, nearly 70% depicted experiences that many people without ADHD would have; about 50% showed symptoms common across multiple disorders as being specifically ADHD; and almost 20% better matched different conditions entirely. Videos often portrayed behaviours like bumping into furniture, repeatedly playing the same songs or craving sweets as ADHD symptoms. Content typically lacked nuance — only 4% acknowledged their claims might not apply universally, and less than 2% mentioned that these experiences could occur in people without ADHD.
Of creators sharing credentials, 84% claimed "lived experience" while 13% identified as life coaches. Not one top video came from a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist. When researchers showed these videos to 843 psychology students — which may limit the applicability of the study to the general population — they generally rated scientifically inaccurate videos much more positively than experts did, while slightly downgrading expert-approved content.
The students either did not have ADHD, had a formal diagnosis or had self-diagnosed ADHD. Overall, self-diagnosed students rated all videos the highest, giving even expert rejected content higher marks than those with formal diagnoses. This, the researchers say, suggests that young people prioritise relatability over clinical accuracy.
For self-diagnosed people especially, previous painful and frustrating experiences of being dismissed may make TikTok's validating content particularly appealing: people like Alyssa Brown, who found that these ADHD descriptions matched many symptoms she had documented. She speaks warmly about discovering an ADHD community on social media after her experiences were disregarded by conventional healthcare. "I always assumed everyone experienced the world like I did. Finding out that's not true was eye-opening. It's deeply reassuring to connect with people who share similar experiences," she explains.