As government scrutiny and even some statewide TikTok bans trickle in, concerns about the app’s impact on youth mental health are often repeated. Among the concerned are the bereft parents of a teen who killed himself last year, reportedly after seeing self-harm content on TikTok.
While states and some organizations decide whether TikTok poses enough danger to warrant a ban, I want to sound the alarm about an online mental health risk that’s even more chronic and not limited to TikTok: an epidemic of self-diagnosis, fueled by social media, that’s leading to improper treatment, missed treatment and the trivialization of serious mental health conditions.
If there’s a silver lining to the COVID-era mental health crisis, it’s that people seem more willing than ever to talk about mental health struggles with friends, with colleagues and sometimes to the whole world online. Even better, they’re willing to get help. The percentage of adults aged 18 to 44 seeking mental health treatment rose significantly during the first years of the pandemic, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If you spend any time online, you can’t miss the new candor about mental health conditions. TikTok and Instagram influencers share their struggles and diagnoses on camera. In recent years, executives on LinkedIn have shared photos of antidepressant medication with the hashtag #PostYourPill. Actor-singer-beauty mogul Selena Gomez launched an entire content platform focused on “mental fitness.” Conditions such as anxiety disorder, ADHD and OCD are not only being de-stigmatized, in some contexts, they’re trending.
Open discussion of mental health is undoubtedly a good thing when it eradicates shame, results in people feeling less alone or motivates somebody to seek needed professional care. But in this new era of openness, we risk oversimplification and even trivialization of complex medical conditions, increasing the risk of overtreatment for some, undertreatment for others and overall mistreatment of people exposed to a cacophony of mental health conversations online but lacking access to balanced, authoritative information and quality clinical care.
Let’s say a young woman perusing TikTok sees an influencer sharing that he has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, then – thanks to social media algorithms – over the next week, more ADHD-related content appears in the young woman’s feed. Some of the symptoms feel relatable, so she does a YouTube search on ADHD. After watching a few of the thousands of videos on the topic, she decides that she herself has ADHD.
This is not unusual. Some therapists at Talkspace, where I serve as the chief medical officer, report they have clients coming to sessions with more complex or specific self-diagnoses. Whereas a client might have said, “I think I’m depressed,” a few years ago, now more are saying, “I think I have borderline personality disorder” or “I think I’m on the autism spectrum.”
Such self-diagnosis can be dangerous. When a social media user becomes convinced that they have a mental health disorder, it can lead them to seek inappropriate treatments. They may announce their self-diagnosis to a primary care provider who doesn’t have sufficient mental health expertise to appropriately evaluate the presenting symptoms. Or the patient may wind up using a telehealth provider to get a prescription medication that’s not helpful or is dangerous. In the case of the hypothetical young woman above, she’d likely be seeing ads for ADHD-focused telehealth prescribers within days, if not minutes, of initially engaging with ADHD influencers.
Diagnosing a mental health disorder isn’t as simple as checking off a list of symptoms. Many healthy people experience symptoms of a mental health condition, but the true measure of whether those symptoms merit a diagnosis and treatment is whether they impair the individual’s ability to function. That determination requires working with a licensed mental health professional to evaluate the frequency, intensity, severity and specificity of those symptoms, and understand them within the broader context of life events, stressors and family history.
A “reel” diagnosis needs a real-life one
To address the “TikTok effect” and stop the dangers of self-diagnosis, mental health professionals must meet people where they are: online and actively searching for answers, inadvertently creating a curated feed.
Social media companies and other platforms with user-generated content have a responsibility to create guardrails that ensure clinically-vetted and accurate information is within reach of anybody seeking content about mental health conditions.
For example, if you enter the search terms “depression” or “suicide” into Instagram, you’re offered a list of mental health resources. However, searches related to specific conditions like OCD, ADHD and Tourette’s link directly to memes and user-generated videos of (to put it generously) mixed quality. Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve seen how quickly social platforms could flag content related to COVID or vaccines and direct people to CDC information on those topics. Therefore, it does not seem unreasonable to expect the same for content around sensitive mental health topics.
When somebody hears about a condition online and believes, correctly or not, that it affects them, they are more likely to feel worried, triggered or even distraught. Thankfully, that same technology can quickly link them with mental health care without stigma or stress and allow them to find real answers under a professional’s guidance – if they land at a responsible, high-quality source of tele-mental health. We recently revamped our own site to provide clinical insights from a dedicated team of licensed, practicing clinicians to add dimension to the spectrum between experiencing symptoms and having a condition.
Unfortunately, some telehealth services are all too quick to prescribe medications, including controlled substances, based solely on answers to online questions. At Talkspace, I am personally committed to our policy of not prescribing controlled substances online. When our board-certified psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners do prescribe medication, it is only after live video consultations and a comprehensive psychiatric evaluation.
Because mental health conditions are so much more complex than what can be captured by a checklist of symptoms, I’m wary of any company that prescribes without live consultations. When digital health companies feed into the misconception that everyone with depressive symptoms is clinically depressed or anyone who’s easily distracted has ADHD, they risk hurting more people than they help.
At a time when it’s all too easy for both the worried well and people with serious mental health conditions to self-diagnose online, it’s imperative that both social media and digital health companies do everything possible to direct vulnerable audiences to trustworthy information and comprehensive, ethical care.
K |
但Oura Ring至今也没有在中国售卖，三星的Galaxy Ring算是第一个将智能戒指在国内“带火”的主流品牌。
L | 随后国内的手机厂商们纷纷加入，荣耀，魅族都相继推出了自己的智能指环。其中魅族的MYVU Ring售价399元，智能戒指来到了一个“虽然不知道有什么用但买一个试试也不心疼”的价格带。
一批智能戒指创业公司也在主流的健康监测功能外，试图找到新的玩儿法。比如国内销量居于头部的智能戒指RingConn，推出了“家人数据共享”的功能，如果你和你爸妈都带了智能戒指，你们就可以在自己的手机app上互相绑定，随时看到对方的睡眠和运动数据。从此你即使离家北漂打工，自己在出租屋里熬夜追剧，也会被你妈通过戒指上的数据捉个现行，家人间的关系又变得亲密无间。
“还是中国戒指懂中国人。”
国产智能戒指界更是跑出了“AI情侣对戒”这样的小众品类。两个人的戒指配对后，你就能实时在手机上检查对方是否佩戴，戒指的宣传语上写着“真情侣就戴小蓝戒”。AI助手还能帮你自动发消息，告诉对方你最近的睡眠情况，也会贴心地给你同步对方最近睡得好不好。“AI时代，发消息不用你亲自动手，谈恋爱、捉奸都有AI代理”。
“扫地机界的小米”追觅这个月也发布了他们的第一款智能戒指。
M | 追觅宣称这是“全球首款具备震动功能”的智能戒指，至于戒指会震动的具体作用则没细说，一种想象是能作为闹钟每天早上通过在你手指上震动把你叫醒。追觅的这款智能戒指定价2999元，“三千块买个无声闹钟？”
为啥科技公司都沉迷于造智能戒指？
最直接的原因是能收取订阅费。另一方面，作为可穿戴智能产品生态的一环，智能戒指往往需要搭配同品牌的电子设备使用。比如三星Galaxy Ring其实有手势操控的功能，但只能用来操作手机相机的快门和关闭闹钟，且必须配合 Galaxy 手机使用。
追觅智能戒指的发布会上，追觅AI智能硬件事业部负责人潘志东提到，未来智能戒指将会成为室内外产品的“纽带”，“我们的戒指会跟包括室内、室外的任何可能的智能场景、智能产品连接，我们已经在做了。
N | ”
畅想相当宏伟，只是当下你需要担心的依然是戒指戴上卡住了摘不下来怎么办。
惨不忍睹的续航、牵强的实用性，配上普遍高昂的定价，智能戒指一面描摹“智能穿戴、人机一体”的未来，一面还在时尚和实用之间不尴不尬。
面对越来越复杂的健康数据，更实际的问题或许是，即使知道了自己的健康数据，该熬的夜一点不会少。“假如它整天告诉我睡眠不好，但我又没法早睡，那岂不是更郁闷？”
而当你可以掌控自己什么时候睡觉、什么时候起床，一个精准、量化的睡眠指标又显得没有必要了，甚至当感受和App上的分数不一致时，有人会困惑到底该相信自己的感受还是戒指上的数字。“明明能睡得很满足的醒来，为什么还要在乎今天的睡眠质量是80分还是85分？”
如果说智能戒指有什么无可替代的消费理由——“手腕上需要戴劳力士或百达翡丽，戴不了智能手表，智能戒指低调得刚刚好。”
参考资料：
1.雷科技，《三星智能戒指首产40万枚，最大挑战是“没什么用”？》，2024.03
2.Business Insider，I wore Oura's smart ring for 2 weeks to track my sleep and temperature. Here's why I couldn't wait to ditch Silicon Valley's favorite wearable，2021.09
3.Bussiness Insider，《The smart ring explosion is here — a sign that fitness trackers are moving from wrists to fingers in 2025》，2024.08
4.The Wall Street Journal，There’s a Lot to Like About These Fitness Rings. But Can They Actually Pass as Jewelry?，2023.06
5.打脸科技，《三星Galaxy Ring变“紧箍咒”：智能戒指的“啼笑皆非”》，2025.10
本文来自微信公众号：Vista氢商业，作者：贾小乐，编辑：卢力麟。
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