Most adolescents attempt to influence peers on social media by making themselves seem as attractive as possible, often by using photo filters and other means to carefully craft posts. However, a social media subculture appears to have formed around the role of mental illness. Embracing an identity of illness has several potential benefits. It can generate the interest and support of peers, lionize the sufferer as heroic, and facilitate affiliation with a like-minded peer group, possibly a preferred group (eg, one perceived as an oppressed minority).
Identification with a psychiatric diagnosis can justify the teen’s distress or failures, and it can provide an excuse from unwanted responsibilities such as going to school or doing chores. Teens often play the role of therapist or caretaker to one another online, making the purported illness the basis for a valued relationship. Therefore, some adolescents may be very invested in being mentally ill, or suffering a specific diagnosis, even despite evidence to the contrary. A physician’s confirmation can be validating. Overidentification with a diagnosis can risk creating a self-defeating thought process and behaviors, as individuals may be reticent to give up the sick role or assume that healthy behaviors are doomed to fail.
Based on the idea of biological contagion, social contagion is the process by which information, behaviors, or attitudes spread among individuals in close contact. Traditionally, this has occurred only among individuals living in close proximity, but media has made contagion possible among those who are distant. Social media appear to have the potential to spread mental health contagion on an unprecedented scale.
Read more at PsychiatricTimes.com.
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