Find a therapist to help with ADHD

Social media is filled with ADHD misinformation and encourages self-diagnosis.

DSM diagnoses themselves are already highly misunderstood.

Symptoms may not be the best way to view ourselves, online or off.

If you ever listen to the same song over and over on repeat, if you’re overwhelmed by laundry and dishes to be washed, if you’re struggling in your relationship, overstimulated by your kids running around, or if you ever find yourself sitting and scrolling on social media when you think you should be productive, then, according to TikTok, you have symptoms of a disorder.

On TikTok, these symptoms are interchangeable with multiple disorders, but often they are linked to ADHD. “TikTok diagnosed me with ADHD” is a phrase you may have heard. It’s become its own meme and a massive industry.

A subscription teletherapy app on social media asks, which breed of ADHD dog are you? Are you affectionate? Do you love deeply and feel rejection deeply? You're an ADHD golden retriever. Emotionally dysregulated? Sensitive to stress with mood swings? ADHD cocker spaniel. Are you food motivated and dopamine seeking? ADHD labrador.

On social media, dog videos are often said to boost viewers’ “feel-good” brain chemicals, serotonin and dopamine. Viewing this diagnostic dog content at all would be diagnosed on social media as dopamine seeking.

ADHD, on TikTok, takes form as a mood disorder and “a whole mood,” as I explain in my book, Mood Disorder: How Social Media and Therapy Tech are Shaping Mental Health. People using social media (as it is designed to be used) are told that scrolling in itself suggests that they are dopamine-depleted and therefore suffering from a disorder.

There is actually no scientifically established biomarker currently that characterizes ADHD, including dopamine-deficiency, but on social media ADHD is commonly discussed as a chemical........

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