Why You Should Not Use Social Media for Health and Wellness Information
Introduction
Modern social media has advanced to the point that even the average user of internet-connected devices spends hours each day on a handful of different platforms.
Thinking back, you may recall first-generation social media platforms like MySpace and Facebook circa 2007. These early social media platforms attempted to replicate offline relationships and identity-building in a digital format.
Over time, social media platforms have largely abandoned the basic premise of interpersonal communication and connection. Much of the content we are exposed to on today’s social media platforms is engineered to influence user behavior by informing, entertaining, and motivating.
Fittingly, individuals who run social media profiles with the aim of shaping that behavior are called “influencers.”
As social media has broadened its reach into every aspect of daily life, so have the influencers themselves. Previously, understanding how the body works required a trip to the library or the doctor’s office. Now, opening your phone during a lunch break is all it takes to be bombarded by health and wellness claims delivered with an air of authority.
Put charitably, the work of health and wellness influencers reflects the spirit of democratization, and any attempt to shed light on health topics for the masses deserves some praise.
However, viewing the attention-grabbing content of social media through a different lens reveals several harsh realities, some of which call into question the value of using social media to consume health and wellness information.
This article will explore five unsavory aspects of health and wellness influencers before offering practical takeaways you can use to protect yourself and others.
Reason #1: Commercial motivations
Keen observers may have noticed that, in recent years, many social media platforms have converged on a core product: new-age television designed to capture your attention with short-form video.
Although legacy television programming is comparatively long-form (30 minutes, 60 minutes, etc.), it almost never fills its entire time slot. Instead, it has long been and remains commonplace to break it up with advertisements.
These advertisements are short-form content in which the advertiser’s commercial motives are abundantly clear.
In contrast, new-age television provides an uninterrupted stream of attention-grabbing yet low-commitment content. This algorithm-optimized programming captivates users the way a slot machine might hypnotize tourists in Las Vegas.
The absence of interruptions, however, does not mean that the short-form content pervading social media is free of commercial motives. Rather, the advertisements are merely hiding in plain sight, with commercial intentions implied but seldom addressed in direct terms.
Because advertising on social media is partially concealed, users must stay vigilant about the motives behind every video, reassessing each creator’s intentions with each new piece of content.
Sustaining the mental effort and skepticism such vigilance demands is no easy task, and the challenge is compounded by the growing role of new-age television in our daily lives.
The consequence is that many of us, unwittingly, are being unduly “influenced” by the commercial motivations embedded within the social media content we regularly consume.
While there are many ways in which commercial motivations can influence social media content, several are particularly insidious:
Featuring a product or service in social media content without disclosing the financial relationship between the influencer and the brand
Presenting products or services with unproven records of safety and effectiveness (or records less proven than those of standard, commonly accepted alternatives)
Suggesting that viewers must use paid products or services to address a problem for which free or lower-cost alternatives would be perfectly sufficient
Explaining how a product or service works using erroneous or misleading health and wellness science
Insisting on the need to purchase a product or service based on exaggerated claims about how common a health issue is
Justifying a purchase based on exaggerated claims about the consequences of a health issue
Ignoring the merits of alternative products or services because they compete with a brand the influencer promotes
At the core of these specific transgressions lies a significant credibility problem: those providing health and wellness information have, above all else, a moral obligation to offer advice that prioritizes their audience’s health.
Unfortunately, it is hard to imagine a creator who can provide nuanced, scientifically accurate messages while also serving their own commercial interests. In other words, the pursuit of commercial gain through health information will eventually lead an influencer to share content that does not fully serve viewers’ health interests.
That is why it is best to adopt a “zero-tolerance” rule: once a creator begins developing industry relationships, scrutinize all of their content, past and present, with disbelief as the default.
Such scrutiny may require viewers to consult independent sources, investigate the creator’s relationship with the commercial entity, and remain vigilant about the credibility of any claim that creator makes.
Reason #2: Novelty bias
Among the mechanisms by which short-form content grabs our attention and refuses to let go, novelty is hard to overlook.
On modern platforms, novelty underpins the way our attention flows seamlessly along endless streams of short videos on a wide variety of topics. After all, sustaining focus on any one topic or video takes more effort than drifting along the path the algorithm lays out for us.
Novelty shapes not only the format of social media content but also its substance.
As a result, social media content tends to be slanted toward the newest developments on a topic, because content about its established aspects is inherently less engaging.
Put simply, if “common sense” is truly common, influencers cannot use it to engage audiences or differentiate themselves. It is also difficult (if not impossible) to commercialize basic wellness insights nearly everyone knows, even if few have truly mastered them.
This emphasis on novelty has serious implications for the usefulness and credibility of health and wellness content on these platforms. The situation is particularly concerning because many of the most impactful insights about health and wellness were established decades, centuries, or even millennia ago.
Take the principle that physical exercise is critical to maintaining or optimizing one’s health: the ancient Greeks knew this, your favorite content creators likely know it, and so do you.
Yet it is easy to imagine how few views and how little engagement a post that simply reiterates this basic truth would earn.
Instead, social media content about health and wellness often spotlights a new research finding, product, or anecdote. As time passes, the buzz around these hot new “insights” fades, and their lasting benefit to the audience’s health is minimal.
The damage comes from audiences being repeatedly and relentlessly distracted from core, reliable health truths by a random collage of content that harnessed novelty to win the algorithm’s favor (and your attention).
Reason #3: Atomized editorial perspective
For content creators, developing a loyal following depends partly on standing out from the crowd on the strength of their unique characteristics. In other words, distinguishing themselves through personality, presentation, or editorial choices is essential to social media success.
This principle contrasts sharply with medicine, where the goal of any medical system is to provide patients, as much as possible, with a standardized, rule-based approach to common health problems.
For example, suppose you have been diagnosed with hypertension (high blood pressure). Whether your doctor practices in a Manhattan high-rise or a remote clinic in South Dakota, you are likely to be offered one of a few first-line drug classes.
In other words, the principles that underpin success as a health and wellness influencer conflict with traditional conceptions of excellence and fairness in health care. How does this lead to worse outcomes for an influencer’s audience?
For starters, influencers have a strong incentive to discuss topics their competitors are not, in an attempt to differentiate themselves from others.
One consequence of this drive toward differentiation is that influencers give undue attention to topics that are obscure, insignificant, or irrelevant to their audience’s health. Exposure to this messaging can send audiences on a wild-goose chase for benefits that rarely materialize.
Sometimes the opposite dynamic appears: influencers flock to trending topics and ride the “wave” created by a critical mass of other creators. To stand out despite converging on the same topic, they often adopt extreme or contrarian positions on it, regardless of their prior statements or particular expertise.
Beyond conscious editorial choices made with the algorithm and human attention in mind, there is a more fundamental problem: health and wellness creators are, in most cases, simply individuals, speaking from the single, limited standpoint of one person.
Like any one person’s viewpoint, a creator’s perspective on health and wellness is bound by the limits of their knowledge, experience, and reasoning abilities. In addition, each influencer’s own biases and conflicts of interest can affect the tone and content of their messaging.
In contrast to social media’s emphasis on individual creators producing quick content, medicine typically arrives at therapeutic guidelines and other recommendations through extensive research and deliberation among institutions (not individuals).
The strength of this collaborative process lies in the fact that any individual’s biases and limitations are partly offset by the knowledge and scrutiny of other contributors.
Ultimately, this teamwork among medical experts allows the global medical community to reach relatively durable, reliable consensus that closely approximates reality.
While sometimes messy and time-consuming, these deliberative, collaborative processes typically produce more trustworthy and actionable insights than any one creator working alone.
Reason #4: Oversimplification and overgeneralization
Influencers may also fail their audiences when it comes to the complexity and specificity of the information they offer. Put simply, short-form, accessible content is in fundamental tension with effective problem-solving in health and wellness.
It should shock no one that the human body and mind are complex. When problems arise with bodily functions, the picture becomes even cloudier.
Sometimes the picture is so cloudy that patients are hospitalized for weeks while highly knowledgeable, experienced health care providers struggle even to isolate a diagnosis (let alone a treatment plan). Even a long list of lab and imaging tests may not yield an actionable understanding of what a given patient needs.
In some cases, even the most tailored diagnostic work cannot provide the clarity needed to change a patient’s course.
Given the limitations of even advanced, individualized medicine, consumers should not expect bite-sized, mass-distributed health information to account for the specifics of their situation.
The problem is compounded by the one-way nature of social media communication: the audience typically cannot share the details of their situation with the influencer.
Naturally, not every health problem warrants an intensive workup at a top-tier university hospital. In fact, some common problems have relatively uncomplicated diagnosis and treatment.
For example, many people in the modern world do not sleep enough. For most of them, the solution is fairly straightforward: more sleep.
Influencers can play a part in spreading the core message about sleep that everyone should hear. Still, the path toward “more sleep” differs for each person.
For people with sleep apnea, treating the repeated closure of the airway during sleep is a key step on the road to better sleep. For those with a nighttime social media habit, setting rules for device use before bed might be the way to wake up more refreshed.
As you can see, even uncomplicated problems can require nuanced, tailor-made solutions. This reflects a key principle: health and wellness advice must be tailored to the needs of the individual receiving it.
Unfortunately, content created for a mass audience rarely achieves the specificity and thoughtfulness needed to generate meaningful insights. To appeal to the widest possible audience, influencers often offer advice that is overly simplified or overgeneralized.
Harm is especially likely when creators fail to acknowledge just how much they have simplified and generalized, effectively misleading the audience about how well the advice applies to their lives.
As a result, even content on a topic that directly concerns an audience member’s health is often irrelevant to them and sometimes harmful.
Consequently, health and wellness content on social media should be viewed as, at most, an introduction to a topic or a jumping-off point for more specific, tailored investigation or problem-solving.
Reason #5: Absence of expertise
Traditionally, expertise in health and wellness is acquired through years of study, training, and practical experience.
Over time, the ever-increasing complexity of medical science has pushed health care professionals to specialize in just one therapeutic area.
That is why, if you have a skin problem, most people’s first thought is to see a dermatologist. Underlying that instinct is an implicit understanding that dermatologists have the specialized knowledge and therapeutic experience needed to address your skin issue.
Of course, consulting experts is not risk-free. No single health care provider is infallible, nor does any one of them necessarily hold the key to resolving a specific problem.
On top of that, experts are sometimes blinded by convictions they hold due to over-learning from past experience.
Social media, by contrast, imposes no standards of qualification or expertise. With a device and an internet connection, practically anyone can join a platform and begin posting about any health and wellness topic.
Unfortunately, the democratization built into social media’s format is easily mistaken for equal credibility among creators. In reality, social media platforms are rife with health and wellness influencers making claims from positions of limited expertise or downright ignorance.
This sort of content free-for-all carries the risk of exposing audience members to health and wellness claims that are incorrect, unfounded, or poorly communicated (in other words, health and wellness misinformation).
Arguably, creators have a moral obligation to consult genuine experts before posting on a topic.
The reason is counterintuitive: experts are not simply people who know a lot about a topic. True experts, as opposed to self-proclaimed ones, are defined by understanding what they do not know.
Experts also engage routinely with unsettled debates in their fields and, as a result, understand the compromises inherent in communicating health and wellness science to the public.
Unfortunately, the gray areas and unanswered questions that drive meaningful scientific inquiry are anathema to short-form content creation, where clarity and conviction are rewarded over hedging and context.
As a result, viewers are seldom exposed to the balanced, critical thinking essential to developing and communicating valuable health and wellness insights.
This lack of rigor can contribute to confusion and cynicism about health and wellness among viewers, ultimately jeopardizing their long-term health and wellness outcomes.
Wellness Takeaways
There are good reasons to view health and wellness content on social media with skepticism. Verify what you encounter.
Content creators often have commercial interests that can compromise the quality and credibility of their advice. Favor creators with few or no industry relationships.
Creators are also incentivized to produce content that contradicts established medical norms or offers extreme, categorical “takes.”
The basic formats of modern social media make it difficult for influencers to deliver the detail and context needed to explain the basis for health and wellness recommendations.
Social media is designed for mass consumption. In contrast, the most useful health and wellness insights must be tailored to each individual’s particular situation.
Anyone can create health and wellness content, but that does not mean every perspective deserves equal weight. Experts are trustworthy not only because of their knowledge and experience but also because of a diligent, responsible approach that encourages nuance and measured insights.
Thank you for your time and attention!
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