'TikTok Detected My ADHD Before I Did' (theguardian.com) 94
"It's kind of embarrassing to say, but the social media app TikTok figured out I had ADHD before I did," writes 23-year-old Australian journalist Matilda Boseley in The Guardian.
"For 23 years my parents, my teachers, my doctor, my psychologist and my own brain all missed the warning signs, yet somehow it only took that app's algorithm a few days to accidentally diagnose me..." Growing up I had always had a nagging feeling that everyone else in the world was coping better than I was. Somehow they could remember appointments and deadlines, they had the discipline to keep an updated planner and they didn't drift off daydreaming in the middle of important conversations... I just felt like there were 10 TVs constantly switched on in my head, and with so much going on, all the small things would fall through the cracks. It wasn't until I downloaded TikTok that I truly considered I might have the disorder.
See, the app is based around the "for you" page which curates a stream of videos for you. It starts out pretty generic, but as you "like" some videos, and quickly scroll past others, the app's algorithm builds a profile of you and your interests. And that profile is scarily accurate sometimes. It genuinely knew me better than I knew myself. What I think happened is that the algorithm noticed that every time a video titled something like "Five little known signs of ADHD in women" showed up on my feed I would watch it, fascinated, all the way to the end.
So, like the dystopian capitalism machine it is, the app showed me more and more of these videos desperate to keep me on the app and extract every possible advertising cent my eyeballs could buy. But, as a side effect, all of a sudden I was seeing ADHD content made by women and for women, for the very first time. It was like someone putting everything that always felt weird in my brain into words. Forgetting something exists if you can't see it could be a problem with "object permanence". Being unable to stand up and tidy my apartment, despite desperately wanting to, might not be laziness; it could be "executive dysfunction". Suddenly it occurred to me, maybe I wasn't somehow just "worse at being a person" than everyone else. Maybe I simply didn't have enough dopamine in my brain. I can't overstate how liberating that felt.
So I booked a doctor's appointment, and three referrals, four months and about $700 later my new psychiatrist looked straight into the webcam and said: "Yes, I think you clearly have ADHD and you've had it for your whole life." I cried from joy when he said it.
Mental health experts told me it wasn't actually that surprising that hearing first-hand accounts of neurodivergence is what finally made the pin drop. In fact, Beyond Blue's lead clinical advisor Dr Grant Blashki said social media could be an extraordinarily powerful tool for increasing what the medical community refer to as "mental health literacy". In fact "learning you have ADHD on TikTok" is now such a common phenomenon that it's become its own meme on the app. There isn't any hard and fast data on the phenomenon but just from my own experience, since telling my friends about my diagnosis, no less than four people have come back to me saying they reckon they might have it too...
At the end of the day I am so grateful for TikTok, and the creators that make ADHD videos. That algorithm has profoundly changed my life, undoubtedly for the better.
"For 23 years my parents, my teachers, my doctor, my psychologist and my own brain all missed the warning signs, yet somehow it only took that app's algorithm a few days to accidentally diagnose me..." Growing up I had always had a nagging feeling that everyone else in the world was coping better than I was. Somehow they could remember appointments and deadlines, they had the discipline to keep an updated planner and they didn't drift off daydreaming in the middle of important conversations... I just felt like there were 10 TVs constantly switched on in my head, and with so much going on, all the small things would fall through the cracks. It wasn't until I downloaded TikTok that I truly considered I might have the disorder.
See, the app is based around the "for you" page which curates a stream of videos for you. It starts out pretty generic, but as you "like" some videos, and quickly scroll past others, the app's algorithm builds a profile of you and your interests. And that profile is scarily accurate sometimes. It genuinely knew me better than I knew myself. What I think happened is that the algorithm noticed that every time a video titled something like "Five little known signs of ADHD in women" showed up on my feed I would watch it, fascinated, all the way to the end.
So, like the dystopian capitalism machine it is, the app showed me more and more of these videos desperate to keep me on the app and extract every possible advertising cent my eyeballs could buy. But, as a side effect, all of a sudden I was seeing ADHD content made by women and for women, for the very first time. It was like someone putting everything that always felt weird in my brain into words. Forgetting something exists if you can't see it could be a problem with "object permanence". Being unable to stand up and tidy my apartment, despite desperately wanting to, might not be laziness; it could be "executive dysfunction". Suddenly it occurred to me, maybe I wasn't somehow just "worse at being a person" than everyone else. Maybe I simply didn't have enough dopamine in my brain. I can't overstate how liberating that felt.
So I booked a doctor's appointment, and three referrals, four months and about $700 later my new psychiatrist looked straight into the webcam and said: "Yes, I think you clearly have ADHD and you've had it for your whole life." I cried from joy when he said it.
Mental health experts told me it wasn't actually that surprising that hearing first-hand accounts of neurodivergence is what finally made the pin drop. In fact, Beyond Blue's lead clinical advisor Dr Grant Blashki said social media could be an extraordinarily powerful tool for increasing what the medical community refer to as "mental health literacy". In fact "learning you have ADHD on TikTok" is now such a common phenomenon that it's become its own meme on the app. There isn't any hard and fast data on the phenomenon but just from my own experience, since telling my friends about my diagnosis, no less than four people have come back to me saying they reckon they might have it too...
At the end of the day I am so grateful for TikTok, and the creators that make ADHD videos. That algorithm has profoundly changed my life, undoubtedly for the better.
Youtube's algorithm isn't good enough? (Score:3)
So does that mean Youtube's algorithm isn't good enough to do something like that in the past decade or two?
Seems to be suggesting that Tiktok really do have a technical edge over their competitors, eh?
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You can say that again!
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You can say that again !
Re:Youtube's algorithm isn't good enough? (Score:5, Insightful)
No its Algo is just really good at spoonfeeding you... It never made any diagnosis about ADHD or anything else... If you reread the article the reason why the videos kept popping up is because that was the content the user had an interest in.. The article clearly spells out why those videos kept popping up...
How does the author think companies use the metrics that they gather if not to push even more ad supported content infront of their eyeballs.. (Oops the author even mentioned that)
But there is nothing amazing in the story... If she walked into the same brick and mortar store every day and always looked at blue dresses the staff would eventually see she walk in the store and say Hey we have a new blue dress that came in today would you like to see it?
Would there be anything impressive about that?
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Well, it'd be pretty good customer service.
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YouTube detects it as well, but YouTube is apparently now for "old people".
Might as well be a case of Barnum Effect (Score:5, Interesting)
Beyond this, the entire story just sounds like an anecdote.
For example I do visit some social media platforms like imgur. On there you regularly find mental health stuff, where people post all kinds of things and find huge agreement from the community. Now if I believed that the content was served by an algorithm and I would also be a gullible person who easily believes they have whatever disorder or disease they're currently reading about, then I'd have all the things.
Sure, some of them might turn out to be true, but what about all the other parts? We've also got to be careful to not fall for some kind of Barnum effect here, where a broken clock being twice right a day is seen as evidence of it working correctly because we want to believe it. We get the same kind of nonsense when people want to believe that science fiction authors predicted future technology better than actual scientists, depicting them as some kind of visionary while ignoring all the times their predictions didn't come true at all.
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The story clearly *is* an anecdote, but that doesn't make it wrong.
There are a lot of conclusions in that article that aren't justifiable from the data, but which *do* sound reasonable, and which further investigation would probably confirm. To do this properly, however, one would need to ensure that Tiktok didn't change their algorithm during the studies. And that's the problem with taking this commentary at face value.
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I think that it can genuinely be as useful as screening tests which can determine the likelihood that a disorder might be present using self reported data on common symptoms.
However such a screening test is not a diagnosis. If filled it out truthfully and score high on one of those screening tests it just means that there might be cause to take a closer look at what's going on there. And that is usually done by performing a lot more tests.
What TikT
Re: Might as well be a case of Barnum Effect (Score:2)
It's also obvious the author was either already aware she might have ADHD, or she doesn't but has a case of Munchausen syndrome or some similar attention seeking behavior.
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Hang on a sec... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Somehow they could remember appointments and deadlines, they had the discipline to keep an updated planner and they didn't drift off daydreaming in the middle of important conversations... I just felt like there were 10 TVs constantly switched on in my head, and with so much going on, all the small things would fall through the cracks."
Sounds to me like these things are things that are important to OTHER people. Keeping an updated planner? WTF? I once watched a coworker spend an entire day updating her Franklin. What a colossal waste of time! What's worse is that she wasn't doing the work she was being paid to do. Important conversations? Are you sure? I'm sure they were important to the other person but I've had conversations with people that were a waste of my valuable time. I too let "small things" fall through the cracks but these things are usually busy work given to me by someone else thus distracting me from working on my own projects.
Perhaps you don't have ADHD but you're really in the wrong career.
Re:Hang on a sec... (Score:4, Funny)
Perhaps you don't have ADHD
Or perhaps you do.
Re:Hang on a sec... (Score:5, Funny)
I once watched a coworker spend an entire day updating her Franklin. What a colossal waste of time!
Yes, watching your coworker update her day planner was certainly a massive waste of time. Shouldn't you have been working?
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There are two types of ADHD, the can't sit still have/to be moving/impulsive type and the more subtle inattentive type.
It's easy to diagnose the first one, and most people with it get professional help. The second type is a sneaky little bitch. It manifests itself as trouble starting and staying focused on a task, being easily distracted, careless mistakes, "spacing out", losing things, hyperfocus, and forgetting things you have to do regularly.
Hyper-focus on a task like updating a Franklin is good exampl
True story (Score:5, Funny)
True story, a few years ago google and youtube started sending me lots of advertisements for schizophrenia medication. That really happened to me.
So if any of you aren't real, please let me know.
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Slashdot probably isn't the best place for that sort of litmus test. Or any real advice, honestly.
Re: True story (Score:1)
You clearly don't exist. Nobody on this site would know what a litmus test is, because it's not done with an app.
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There is no standard human. We are all neurologically and physically divergent. The only issue is the specific manner and degree. We all think others are coping better. We all think others are having more and better sex. We all think we are being watched. We all think we are more important and people care more about what we do than is actually real.
There is nothing wrong with trying to meet others expec
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> That is why we have an opioid crisis.
It's not the only reason. Opioids are _effective_. at relieving agony, including the dire agony of losing your job, your family, and your health due to addiction to opioids.
Remembering appointments and deadlines (Score:5, Interesting)
they could remember appointments and deadlines
Pro-tip: Normal people deal with these by setting up a reminder on their smartphones.
Disclaimer: I am an Aspie, which is the opposite of ADHD. I have no problem focusing for hours on irrelevant minutiae.
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Pro-tip: Normal people deal with these by setting up a reminder on their smartphones.
It's great advice, but I know people who think such things encourage mental laziness, worsen the problem, etc. They'd rather do mental exercises, remembering things, doing things with your non-dominant hand, etc. I dunno...
Re:Remembering appointments and deadlines (Score:5, Informative)
Disclaimer: I am an Aspie, which is the opposite of ADHD. I have no problem focusing for hours on irrelevant minutiae.
So can people with ADHD. It's called hyperfocus and it does happen often when people take an interest into something and start obsessing about it.
Asperger's is also not the opposite of ADHD. In fact they share so many commonalities that when you test for either ADHD or "Asperger's" you also test for the other to find out whether it's either one, the other, both, or neither.
Though you do sound like a couple of people with Asperger's that I've learned to know through my life. Full of themselves thinking that they're some kind of expert for mental disorders because they have one themselves. While you might be an expert on what you experience yourself, you shouldn't project that onto others. Because guess what, having a toothache does not make you a dentist!
Disclaimer: I'm also one of those. And those annoying "Asperger's" that I've learned to know I met in "Asperger groups" that were recommended to me after I was diagnosed. They were supposed to help, but god did I hate most of the people there.
ADHD ? (Score:5, Funny)
I want more than that, how about AD8K
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Honestly I think you should be modded insightful
astroturf propaganda campaign? (Score:5, Insightful)
The underlying message is that social media doesn't radicalise you or turn you into a fascist, it just helps you find the real you.
It's not them, it's you.
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Not precisely, though close. If it pays them they'll help you find the real you. If they can more easily sell you something else, then that's what they'll sell you. (Of course, they may do both, and double down.)
The very summary says that what they were doing was optimizing the things she watched to hold her attention (and get them more clicks). Of course, that's the author's opinion rather than proven fact, but it seems quite plausible.
hmmm sounds more normal than ADHD (Score:3)
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You got me wondering for a moment if "Matilda" was also a man's name. Hard to be sure these days.
"I cried from joy" was a hint as well, but then I though... well, hard to be sure these days.
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maybe he has ADHD, but the symptoms he describe are actually pretty much the norm.
Worse than that. It looks like she may have been actively doctor shopping for the diagnosis.
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It did not diagnose you (Score:2)
I am so grateful for TikTok (Score:1)
Ok, ok, don't overdo it.. The check is in the mail
The apps know all... (Score:1)
Dopamine and reward (Score:5, Interesting)
Norepinephrine is released when we act to do things, and it's effectively a low-order stress hormone. When that happens, a "counter" of sorts starts in your brain and keeps track of the sum total aggravation from doing the task.
Dopamine is released when we're on the right track for a goal, and it counters the norepinephrine a little bit. it's literally an analgesic, and can allow you to keep doing something even though it's stressful. A good example is jogging and wanting to quit, but deciding to "go until the next marker": you suddenly have a goal, and your dopamine kicks in to keep you running until the goal despite the fact that you desperately want to stop.
Some Background: In a previous experiment, researchers identified kids (5yo, IIRC) who liked to draw and began giving them gold stars for their drawings. After some time the researchers stopped giving gold stars, and as a result the kids stopped drawing altogether. The explanation was that liking to draw that was an internal reward, but it was replaced by an external reward, and when the external reward was taken away they no longer had any reward structure accompanying drawing. Drawing became an unrewarding task for them.
So we go through school and have our homework graded, our parents encourage us to do a good job, we go to college and are encouraged by teachers and work with others on interesting projects, our writings are graded, and at the end we're given a diploma as a reward for all the good jobs we've done
It's a recipe for depression. You can't find the energy to do things because all your internal motivations have been replaced by external ones, and then those were taken away leaving you with no motivation whatsoever.
That's low dopamine in a nutshell. There are roughly 4 types of depression based on 4 categories of neurotransmitter, and dopamine's one of them. (Serotonin depression is more about dark moods such as suicide and EMO, catecholamines is depression resulting from stress, and endorphins is depression resulting from emotional or physical pain.)
Increasing your dopamine is a hard nut to crack, but you can try a behaviorist approach: chop your projects up into well-defined subtasks with identifiable goals, and then reward yourself for goal completion: have a slice of pie or cake, go to the arcade for an afternoon, watch a good movie, or whatever it is that you enjoy.
It also helps if you can identify an overarching reason that has great value to you, but note that it has to have real personal value. Saying that you want to solve the energy crisis is a fine reason, and this sustains many people, but if it doesn't seem personally valuable then it'll be worthless to you. Better would be something like "be of better value to your family" or "I've always wanted to do this" or "this would be really neat" that's not as distant or abstract.
It helps if you can find someone and make a plan to help each other in getting things done. Simply telling a friend what your plans are helps, and if both of you approach it like a group project (of sorts), then that helps also. Deadlines can also sometimes help.
(Disclaimer: Not a psychologist, but been studying psychology in depth as background for a project.)
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...and then it all changes. We get paid direct-deposit so that we aren't handed money every week, we're evaluated once a year instead of by project, bosses never recognize our work and say "good job", never hand out little rewards, and just about anything we do personally goes unnoticed.
Your thesis has interesting implications on Agile development. Could it be that the two week sprints are designed to simulate school like schedules in reverse and not to solve production timing issues? I'd never thought of it that way, but maybe it is...
$700 for an docker is the real issue! (Score:2)
$700 for an docker is the real issue!
Misinterpretation of results? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about the more obvious interpretation, which is that Matilda diagnosed herself and TikTok noticed.
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How about the more obvious interpretation, which is that Matilda diagnosed herself and TikTok noticed.
And then went doctor shopping until she found someone who agreed with her. That is also not out of the ordinary, and is probably far more common than multiple medical professionals missing that she "clearly" had ADHD, a disorder which is quite commonly diagnosed to the point of often being overdiagnosed.
I wonder (Score:2)
How much Tik Tok paid for this product placement
I'm reminded of how the store Target (Score:3)
Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
One person thinks their issues have a proper label after self diagnosing off the web and this is news?
Never mind that ADHD diagnostics are imprecise to say the least and that generally a consensus from multiple professionals (psych, md, OT etc) are usually required, let's say she has been accurately assessed: how many people self diagnose in a day and are wrong?
WTF is the point of the article and why is it on /.?
Maybe if it had some pointers about where and how to get help but instead it says go to youtube for help. Hell, I have trouble finding accurate information about engine diagnostics, so I should go there for brain diags?
"WTF is the point of the article why is it on /.?" (Score:2)
Re:Really? (Score:4, Informative)
One person thinks their issues have a proper label after self diagnosing off the web and this is news? Never mind that ADHD diagnostics are imprecise to say the least and that generally a consensus from multiple professionals (psych, md, OT etc) are usually required, let's say she has been accurately assessed: how many people self diagnose in a day and are wrong?
I don't know if your attention was too short to skim even the summary :), but it did say that her diagnosis came from a psychiatrist after three referrals. This was not a story about "one person thinks their issues have a proper label after self-diagnosing off the web". It's instead about "one person's web hints prompted them to seek out useful professional help which they wouldn't have gotten otherwise; and moreover this one person's anecdote is an example of a wider and important contribution to public health literacy."
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Yes I read that. She shopped around until she found a shrink that validated her belief. Three referrals are not the same as getting a consensus opinion from multiple different professionals. RTFA.
GMail diagnosed me... (Score:5, Funny)
GMail diagnosed me as having an inheritance from rich uncle in Nigeria and problems getting it up years ago.
Still waiting for the check, and the blue pills to arrive.
Re: GMail diagnosed me... (Score:2)
I'm done with this garbage website. (Score:2)
Anyone want a six digit /. ID?
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Anyone want a six digit /. ID?
No thanks, man. I'm good.
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Same here.
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Yes please.
Re:I'm done with this garbage website. (Score:4)
Does it come in an NFT?
News flash (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: News flash (Score:1)
98% of TikTok users have ADHD (Score:1)
This reads like it was self-diagnosed, not TikTok (Score:4, Insightful)
The article says:
What I think happened is that the algorithm noticed that every time a video titled something like “Five little known signs of ADHD in women” showed up on my feed I would watch it
So, unsurprisingly, clicking on videos with ADHD in the title causes TikTok to suggest more videos with ADHD in the title. That's not any magic diagnosis ability of TikTok, but fairly simple pattern matching.
Possibly the person didn't mean there was literally "ADHD" in the title, though the article can be read that way. That would be more interesting but, even so, I'd guess the outcome was down to metadata with the videos, even if not the title itself.
TikTok leading to the person seeking help is obviously a good outcome but I think the credit should go more to the producers of the videos.
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I had a headache a year ago and Googled it. WebMD determined I had cancer. I've been to many doctors but somehow they don't all see the obvious. I just can't wait to get a referral to the right one who agrees with me.
That's what this article reads like. ADHD is incredibly commonly overdiagnosed, not underdiagnosed. Excuse me for not believing for a moment that many other medical professionals missed the fact that she "clearly" had ADHD.
I'm confused ... (Score:2)
'TikTok Detected My ADHD Before I Did'
Isn't TikTok *for* people with ADHD?
Yes (Score:2)
Because you signed up for TikTok. Duh.
Diagnosed or convinced you that have it? (Score:3)
Reading the summary I could not help but to think, did TikTok diagnose the problem, of simply convince the person they had the problem? Akin to Medical students' disease ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] )
40+ here... (Score:2)
It wasn't TikTok who detected ADHD (Score:2)
When someone is watching ADHD videos, and an algorithm shows them more ADHD videos, it doesn't mean that the algorithm detected ADHD, only that the person already thought they had ADHD and the algorithm latched onto that.
For me it was a little more disconcerting that Facebook one day, out of the blue, claimed that it thinks I like SciFi. I hardly use Facebook, I mostly use it to contact companies. In the rare event I like or comment on something, it's usually tech-related.
Dystopian? (Score:2)
So, like the dystopian capitalism machine it is...
And yet it identified her ADHD. Sounds like eutopia to me. Oh, but she's a 20-something, so words mean what she wants them to mean.
and? (Score:1)
proof (Score:2)
Just goes to show that TikTok is a magnet for people with metal health issues. I'm just going to leave the asylum to you all.
Yeah, right. (Score:2)
Actually, /. has now detected not ADHD, but terminal stupidity.
The cake frosting detected my diabetes before I di (Score:2)
ADHD – blinded with pseudoscience (Score:1)
“*In summary, pharmaceutical companies and psychiatrists are like bees round a honey pot regarding ADHD. These two groups can be viewed as symbiotic, as partners in commerce, where the manufacture of ‘disorders’ such as ADHD lend themselves to the production of new laboratory chemicals that subdue an individual, which are then haile
Parlor tricks (Score:1)
It's not hard to spit out a diagnoses. It's also free.
Did you know that you suffer from ADHD? Based on the way you type words it seems that might be true. Take Blue Devil ADHD pills to help.
Did you know that you suffer from not having enough sex? We sell a full line of self help sexual aids. Just visit Blue Devil Sex Shop.
Analyzing your family history we noticed that your relative Marie suffers from some medical conditions. We think you would benefit from fill in the blank.
Cast the net wide enough and you'l