2023-04-24 06:01:00
Social networks and influencers are often considered harmful to the mental health of users, in particular pushing them to compare themselves to others. However, it could have a very positive impact.
“You shouldn’t try to add years to your life, but rather try to add life to your years.” This quote from John Fitzgerald Kennedy leads us to reflect on a subject that has been discussed all the more since the health crisis: mental health.
Far from being just an abstract concept, mental health is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as “an essential component of health and represents much more than the absence of mental disorders or handicaps.”
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When the issue of mental health is discussed, social networks, and in particular TikTok, are not welcome. Harmful, toxic and even dangerous : this is how the latter are often qualified, sometimes even considered responsible for the death of certain teenagers, like Molly Russell, this 14-year-old British girl who killed herself in 2017.
The networks have been declared responsible for his death, after offering him, because of their algorithm, posts related to self-harm, depression and suicide. However, content sharing platforms and mental health are also fully compatible. Investigation in the TikTok universe.
Say it exists
Popular in particular thanks to the trends it offers, the TikTok social network is also the right place to sharing life stories. While some tell horror stories or have fun sharing their funniest anecdotes, others decide to dedicate part of their content to mental health.
This is the case of Sam, TikTokeur with more than 8,300 subscribers and known by the nickname @call.me.sam. When we ask him about his motivations, the young man explains: “I share a lot of stuff from the intimate sphere and therefore, talking about mental health was a bit of a continuation”. “I think it’s a political subject which is super taboo in France and it’s important to say that it exists”, adds- he.
Diagnosed with autism around the age of 26, Sam wants to show that subjects like la neuroatypiein other words, the fact of having a neurological or psychological functioning that deviates from the “norm”, can concern everyone.
Far from dedicating his account only to his ASD (autism spectrum disorder), the TikTokeur details: “Beyond autism, there are plenty of other things that are wrong at all and that is by sharing my daily life, speaking of periods of less welllike the mourning that I experienced, that I can encourage people to take hold of the subject.”
A first step
“When people on the autism spectrum or otherwise tell me that they asked the right questions thanks to me and that they had made an appointment with a shrink for the first time, I find it extremely positive,” admits Sat.
An impact that those who follow him confirm. Alex, one of them, recounts his experience: “I’m 15 and I’m sure I have ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I have trouble concentrating in class. and it made me lose confidence in myself. When I started following Sam, I said to myself that I wanted to start my treatment journey now and above all, I stopped believing I was crazy.”
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“I don’t think I really need a psychiatrist at the moment or even to talk about what’s wrong, but I know that if I feel the need, it’s ok. I know it deep down but to see someone like him discussing it with his entire community, it reassures me“, admits Camille, also subscribed to Sam.
This strength of sharing experience, Karine Noger, psychologist and founder of the Institute of Resources in Sport Psychology, is sensitive to it. For her, the well-being that Sam’s subscribers feel when listening to him is completely explained: “When you feel like you’re alone, you feel abnormal, but the testimony is good because afterwards, we certainly feel different but not abnormal.
Breaking taboos
Sam is clear. By sharing such content, he wants to break taboos around mental health: “People perceive me as someone super positive so it’s important to show that it’s not just that and that it’s there are days when it’s not going well.” An approach valued by Karine Noger For her, talking about mental health is not not yet standardized.
“When an athlete is injured, there is no harm in taking painkillers for the pain, but as soon as we talk about a psychological injury, many people feel guilty because society says that to have frailties is to be weak“, she asserts.
She adds: “Depression, for example, is a fracture in the brain, and our brain is an organ like any other.” Alas, when it comes to mental health, social representations are not the same as for physical health.
Risks ?
However, talking about mental health on a social network like TikTok raises questions.
In particular, content creators may have tendency to replace the experta phenomenon that Sam dreads and tries to limit: “I have people who come to see me to tell me that they are not well and my first instinct is to redirect them to a health professional precisely because I am not shrink.”
As a psychologist, Karine Noger confirms that you should not replace the expert. “The interest of the professional is to enter into what is called in psychology the asymmetrical egalitarian relationship.“, she specifies.
In other words, the patient is an expert in his own life and knows how it works, while the healthcare professional is an expert in solutions because he knows how to find the origins of a problem and support the person asking for it.
“It’s great that content creators are opening up spaces but the expert is going to allow to go beyond experience sharing and will know how to accommodate patient requests”, adds Karine Noger.
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In addition, another slightly less obvious point should be emphasized and lies in the uniqueness of testimonials TikTokers. Instead of freeing speech, these can have the opposite effect. The psychologist details: “SIf the testimonials are so unique, it can rob other people who don’t feel the same way at all.”.
Moreover, if the content creators who testify have a so-called exemplary background, this can lead those who listen to them to become discouraged.
A very present mechanism in cases of violence according to Karine Noger: “The people who testify, in particular about violence, can have a very strong impact, but these same testimonies can lead people to say that they don’t have the same mental strengthwhich doesn’t do them any good.”
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