“The Ick” Social Media and Personality Psychopathology Continued

So I thought I would write another post about social media and psychopathology that was inspired by reading this article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202408/2-ways-that-the-ick-can-ruin-a-perfectly-good-relationship

I have talked about how there is research that has shown that social media use is amplifying especially more negative behavioral traits. Here is one on narcissism. To individuals susceptible to borderline personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, addiction, and narcissism to name a few, the use of social media continues to reinforce these neural pathways. It amplifies trauma and addiction pathways as well. I saw it in my practice and continue to see it in the community. In today’s world someone may claim it gives them “the ick”.

So what is so harmful about “the ick”. It is another example of the amplification of negative behavioral traits. While some people may be using “the ick” as a social joke or humorous situation, what many don’t realize is that over time even the joke can be adopted unhealthily. The tendency to immediately display emotions, no filter, and acting on snap judgements is a hallmark of significant emotional reactivity – and something that generally in the realm of mental health we start working up to assess for mental health conditions such as ADHD, personality disorders, and other disorders with impulse control symptomatology.

Like the article discusses “the ick” can cause individuals to be quickly dismissive, aggressive, rude, and superficial in the name of humor. (Which don’t get me wrong I am not anti-humor), but I do like to consider what chronic exposure to “ick” videos does in terms of forming neural pathways that are more accepting of these behaviors over time and the vicarious “learning” that is done. What is also interesting is that in mental health, professionals understand that if appropriate social interactions are not being had during formative years – it leads to specific behavioral traits such as impulsivity, aggression, low self esteem, loneliness, dependence, addiction, and the list goes on. We have a generation of individuals raised by technology and a smart phone. I sometimes talk about this with my students – even if the child is not exposed to technology, a distracted parent who is answering to a device during formative childhood social interactions is training the child’s neural pathways during those bidirectional communication moments and what we are seeing is deficited social communication.

Like the article mentioned one has to wonder if there are rooted fears driving some of “the ick”. We explore these fears in the office, like fear of commitment and significant relationship insecurity. Furthermore we consider low self-esteem, attempts to avoid loneliness but through means that also attempt to avoid severe rejection sensitivity. I know I saw plenty of these behaviors in my office.

Interestingly, in my office though many patients would state things like they were “having difficulty socializing” (outside of social media). They “felt like the weird kid” and they expressed difficulties engaging in healthy back and forth relationships. If you are reading between the lines here, it starts to sound like what has also become a trendy sensation which is to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. I can definitely say in my practice I too was believing that perhaps there may be something to this, perhaps there were some missed diagnoses (there are…) but not to the level that we are seeing with individuals seeking a diagnosis after exposure to TikTok and other social media platforms.

I could go on for quite a while on these subjects, but today, I really just want to focus on the impact chronic social media use is having is having on mental health, the formation of personality (especially in children and adolescents who are still forming these neural pathways), and just drive thoughtful inquiry around the topic. For practitioners, it is going to be more imperative that we be mindful when giving diagnoses and consider the influence of these social factors.

I very much appreciate science and dialogue. While today’s discussions was not generated based on reading the empiric scientific literature, it is relevant to mental health. Please send me your thoughts, send me your research, or even just questions!