Chronically Online and Symptom Scrolling: Is Social Media’s Psychological Content Influencing Self-Perceived Health Identity?
Social media platforms engage users by displaying an individual’s multiple identity domains within one online space. Health identity presents as a domain in identity perception that is often present in online discourse. This paper investigates how the self-perceived identity of neurodivergence is impacted by algorithmic and psychological processes on TikTok, a social media platform. It builds upon previous work that situates neurodiversity as an identity, interrogates the expression of neurodiversity online, and examines how user-informed algorithmic processes reiterate neurodiversity content. In this paper, I argue that the connection between an individual’s identity perception and the content they consume is reinforced by each other. I propose that destigmatization, internalization, and overgeneralization processes explain how individuals connect their identity understanding to recurring neurodiversity content. I also discuss the implications of these processes for how people understand their neurodivergent identity by specifically focusing on the impact of curated content. In addition, I discuss implications of this process related to personal well-being and perception of neurodiversity. This paper can inform how content presented on social media can impact one’s health identity. Understanding these processes is crucial for decreasing misdiagnosis and preventing underrepresentation of neurodivergent disorders, identity turmoil, and information bias.