$"Diagnosis Tiktok: How Social Media Impacts Mental Health.\u201d$

Our January Clinical Grand Rounds presentation will be on: "Diagnosis Tiktok: How Social Media Impacts Mental Health.”
About this Event

Our January Clinical Grand Rounds will be on: "Diagnosis Tiktok: How Social Media Impacts Mental Health" and will be presented by Paul Weigle, M.D..

Dr. Weigle is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and Associate Medical Director at Natchaug Hospital, of Hartford Healthcare, and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at both University of Connecticut School of Medicine and Quinnipiac Medical School. Dr. Weigle has served on the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry’s Media Committee for the past 20 years, co-chairing the committee for the past 8, and for 8 years on the National Scientific Advisory Board for the Institute of Digital Media and Child Development. He is a nationally-recognized expert on the interaction between mental health and screen media habits & experiences, and has published dozens of related articles.

Synopsis & Objectives:

Social media (SM) engagement among adolescents has skyrocketed since the pandemic, transforming teen interactions and relationships. Clinicians understand that SM positively and negatively influences mental health, but remain unaware of the most clinically relevant mechanisms and related opportunities.

We will review clinical and research evidence regarding specific means by which SM affects mental health. Metanalytic reviews of available studies indicate a significant association between SM and adolescent ill-being, with a small to moderate effect size, although variation in findings is considerable.

SM engagement confers opportunities for teen development of capacity for intimacy and self-esteem as well as solicitation of peer support and psychoeducation. Unique qualities of SM experiences, which uniquely impact mental health, include social comparison and FOMO, contagion effects, digital distraction, misinformation, and SM conflict.

The relationship between SM and mental illness depends on characteristics of the user (e.g., social comparison & fear of missing out (FOMO) and specific SM habits (e.g., late night use) and experiences (e.g., cyberbullying, sexting). Incorporation of how such factors interact with the adolescent psyche is vital to a contemporary psychiatric formulation. Clinicians must understand complexities of the relationship between SM and mental health in order to best evaluate and advise our patients. This program will educate clinicians on how SM habits and experiences affect psychopathology for better and worse.

Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of this activity participants will be able to:

1) Describe how social media interacts with mental health, depending on specific characteristics of the user, as well as social media habits and experiences.

2) Understand the concept of mental health contagion and how it occurs via social media.

3) Evaluate our patient’s social media use and its importance for psychiatric diagnosis and treatment.