When Mental Health Goes Viral

— by Lauren Rutter, PhD.

We’re in a moment in history when mental health is part of everyday conversation, which is mostly a good thing. More people are talking openly about experiences with anxiety, ADHD, trauma, postpartum depression, autism, and burnout. As these experiences become easier to name and more public figures share their experiences with treatment, stigma is reduced. This is progress.

The internet has a way of turning complex experiences into simple stories.

A diagnosis may not be the most useful way to understand what’s happening.

At the same time, the internet has a way of turning complex experiences into simple stories. Many of the things people struggle with - feeling stretched thin, sad, overstimulated, distracted, or unfocused - are universal experiences. Sometimes those experiences reflect an underlying neurodevelopmental or mental health condition, but sometimes they reflect stress, exhaustion, or just being human.

A diagnosis can be incredibly helpful when it clarifies a long-standing, impairing, or distressing pattern. But when symptoms are transient, mild, context-specific, or suddenly gaining popularity online, a diagnosis may not be the most useful way to understand what’s happening. While labels can open doors to treatment, they can also start to feel like a life sentence, which is particularly harmful if they’re applied hastily or based on misinformation online.

This is why thoughtful, evidence-based assessment is still the gold standard in our field. A good evaluation helps us understand what’s driving someone’s internal experience. The goal isn’t a label for its own sake, but for clarity about what kind of treatment will help most. In our practice, we focus on collaborative assessments that look at the whole picture to find answers that are useful, not just relatable or timely with social topics.

And this is not just opinion. My colleagues and I have found in our research (1) that self-diagnosis reflects real distress, especially for conditions like depression, anxiety, and insomnia. While self-diagnosis isn’t a replacement for care, noticing oneself in a description online can be an important early warning sign that something is wrong. People should trust what they feel. Self-awareness is often the first step. The algorithm shouldn’t be the second.

Read more:

1 Rutter, L. A., Howard, J., Lakhan, P., Valdez, D., Bollen, J., & Lorenzo-Luaces, L. (2023). “I haven’t

been diagnosed, but I should be”: Insight into individuals’ self-diagnoses of common mental health

disorders. JMIR Formative Research, 7. e39206. doi: 10.2196/39206.