I've Got it All: New Age Hypochondria and the Rise of Social Media Mediated Self-Diagnosis

 I've Got it All: New Age Hypochondria and the Rise of Social Media Mediated Self-Diagnosis

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It's quite easy to fall down the rabbit hole. You start unassuming, scrolling on your phone through Instagram or TikTok, and you come across posts sharing what it feels like to be overwhelmed at a party, or nervous when entering a new space. This all means you might have anxiety… and if you have anxiety, then maybe you're feeling anxious right now? You scroll a bit more to calm down, and you see other posts about being disorganized and messy. “Do you forget where you place your phone and lose track of time quickly? Those are missed traits of ADHD.” All of a sudden, you have to worry about that as well. 

It doesn’t end there; more and more posts will populate your feed as you scroll, each sharing the minute details you might have missed that indicate you have a mental illness that has gone undetected earlier in your life. Anxiety, Depression, OCD, ADHD, and even Bipolar Disorder. Every hiccup in your daily life suddenly becomes an indication of something deeper. A lingering illness that may grow worse with time. 

As posts like this have flooded social media, it's not a surprise to see a rise in self-diagnosis. LifeStance Survey found that approximately 29 percent have self-diagnosed a mental illness based on social media information, and 27 percent experience anxiety surrounding the self-diagnosis process (1).

Social media isn't the root cause, but rather how we talk about mental illness within posts. The current rhetoric focuses on destigmatizing mental illness through sharing the reality of living with it and its treatments. While de-stigmatization has improved people seeking out professional treatment, as US mental health diagnosis has jumped 40 percent between 2019 and 2023,  there is a fine line between destigmatizing and de-pathologizing (2). 

Before understanding depathologizing comes understanding pathologizing, which is to view a behavior as abnormal. This does not just lend itself to mental health but physical health as well. Abnormal behavior in a physical sense can range from hives to a fever. De-patologizing is to stop viewing a behavior as abnormal (3). Which, to tie back to physical symptoms, would be acceptance of hives or chronic fever. 

It is important to keep this physical framework in mind as we have a more complex and enriched social understanding of illnesses that manifest visibly. We recognize cases of chronic illness like diabetes, asthma, and arthritis as uncontrollable and may require acute treatments. While they are not particularly desirable, they are not a death sentence. This duality of acceptance, but also understanding that this illness is ultimately undesirable, is the balance between de-stigmatization but maintain pathologization. This balance is not being achieved when it comes to mental illness, as social media destigmatization does not explicitly state the debilitating nature of many conditions.  

Pathologized behaviors are more than just an acknowledgement of abnormal behavior; it leads to a process known as medicalization. Medicalization is the process of a set of behaviors being classified as a medical disorder. Medicalization is the process that comes after pathologization, but the de-pathologization caused by over-simplification of the illnesses on social media has complicated this order.

We have acknowledged mentall illness are infact illnesses, but have conflated many feelings or discomfort or a normal level of stress with symptoms. This has de-pathologized, increasing the impacts of self-diagnosis. People are more likely to self-diagnose because the symptoms arevague and recur in posts constantly, while also increasing anxiety in those self-diagnosed because the illnesses remain medicalized despite losing pathologized status.  

Simultaneously de-pathologizing actively works against those who are formally diagnosed. Diminishing the impact of finding the mean in the diagnosis after struggling for a long time. If ‘everyone’ is depressed, then those who fail to keep up with daily lives may be more ashamed of acknowledging when they struggle, which impacts the rates of them reaching out for help (4). This leads to what many researchers have defined as an epistemic injustice, in which individuals are harmed epistemically by one another. They are having their sense of the world invalidated or not given respect or acknowledgment. It invalidates those suffering from a mental illness, as their reality is being challenged. 

Researchers particularly look to the illness OCD as a prime example of how trivialization leads to its de-pathologization. The illness has been reduced to someone who prefers organization or cleanliness, which may be just one of many symptoms of a form of OCD known as contamination OCD. This reduction ignores the mental challenge of overcoming the O or obsession, which is often rumination on certain thoughts that reflect through compulsive actions in order to alleviate it. Ignoring these symptoms overlooks the reality of those actually suffering, reduces the illness to seemingly universal traits (meaning anyone could self-diagnose), and could actually fail to capture those undiagnosed who actually have OCD, as their true symptoms are not being shared. 

We didn’t just arrive in this digital space overnight; de-pathologization has been slowly building over time. Illnesses like depression, eating disorders, and PTSD have been glorified in television movies and websites, including the popular blogging website Tumblr. This aestification lends to trivialization and popularizes the notion of struggling in such a sense. This glorification has trickled down and been mixed with well-intentioned advocacy targeted toward destigmatization, overly simplifying complex illness, leading to where we find ourselves today. We are amidst constant content urging us to be aware, but also simplified explanations of symptoms that increase our worry.

This increased worry is only one impact of de-pathologizing. Most dangerously, about 80 percent of those self-diagnosed do not seek out formal treatment. Instead then turn to remedies and treatments they see online that could be dangerous,s especially if they misdiagnose. Individuals who misdiagnose have a great potential to inadvertently intensify other dormant symptoms, including mania (4). Of course, while social media has made an impact on de-stigmazation it also has not fully resolved the problem. Individuals may self-diagnose due to increased access to information, but carry internalized stigma, which prevents them from seeking out professional help. 

It's clear that mental health advocacy on social media teeters on the fine line between destigmatization and dangerous de-patholization. It is important when consuming and curating these posts to be mindful of who the audience receiving them may be. Often, we should look to scale back on oversimplifications or reductions. Turn instead to personal stories rather than a keynote of an illness in order to preserve how intense symptoms can be, regardless of what they are diagnosed to have. Finally, posts should advocate that those who feel they might require a diagnosis should always turn to a professional before making choices that impact their health. There is a long road ahead ot naivagitng proper care and identification of mental ilness so it is important that we remain mindful of how we discuss it on the internet.  

Citations

1-“LifeStance Survey Finds Nearly One-Third of Americans Use Social Media Content to Self-Diagnose Mental Health Conditions.” LifeStance Health Inc., investor.lifestance.com/news-releases/news-release-details/lifestance-survey-finds-nearly-one-third-americans-use-social. Accessed 25 Feb. 2026. 

2-Storey, Denis. “Mental Health Diagnoses Take Unprecedented Leap.” Psychiatrist.Com, Psychiatrist.com, 30 Apr. 2024, www.psychiatrist.com/news/mental-health-diagnoses-take-unprecedented-leap/#:~:text=Clinical%20relevance:%20Mental%20health%20diagnoses,most%20common%20diagnoses%20in%202023. 

3- The Harms of De-Pathologizing Some Mental Health Conditions, www.madinamerica.com/2022/10/harms-de-pathologizing-mental-health-conditions/. Accessed 26 Feb. 2026. 

4-“The Hidden Dangers of Self-Diagnosing Psychological Disorders from Social Media.” Silver Linings Neurodevelopment, silverliningsclinic.com/blog/the-hidden-dangers-of-self-diagnosing-psychological-disorders-from-social-media#:~:text=The%20accessibility%20of%20information%20on,also%20lead%20to%20adverse%20outcomes. Accessed 25 Feb. 2026.