TikTok & IUDs
Keri Tomechko
As part of a homework assignment in one of my courses last year, I was instructed to take some time to browse the internet and social media as if I was a young person newly interested in casually exploring contraceptive options. Having grown accustomed to the readings from the credible clinical websites, university publications, scientific research papers, and medical journals typical of coursework in higher education, I anticipated that a quick search would reveal simple resources with unbiased, factual information geared towards the common consumer.
While these resources are certainly available and plentiful on the internet (some examples linked below), I was also unpleasantly surprised by the sheer quantity of content that I found on social media that was emotionally-driven, unrealistic, and misleading. While this is unsurprising, the concerning part was that, on social media, this information was often easier to find than factual information. I’d imagine this is because the rare, emotional, shocking, horrifying stories are the ones that attract the most views. I fully understand this–as humans, we love a good story.
However, as explained by the availability heuristic, if we only ever hear about the rare cases where things go wildly wrong, it’s very easy to have a misinformed, skewed perspective on reality.
I recalled this assignment when I recently read about a couple Duke med school students who conducted research analyzing IUD-related Tik-Toks. While I was not entirely surprised that 37.8% of the top IUD Toks had a “negative tone”, I was upset to read that around ⅓ of the videos mentioned “distrust of healthcare professionals” and even more horrified to see that 24.4% contained “moderately or highly inaccurate scientific claims”.
This is a difficult problem to tackle because of course people can and should be allowed to share their stories and opinions. However, when this includes the spread of false information, negative consequences can result. Individuals may be misguidedly afraid to seek out care, even that which is safe and effective in the vast majority of cases. Some social media sites, such as Instagram, have begun to employ independent fact-checkers who flag posts to make consumers aware that they may contain misinformation. I think this is certainly a smart and effective start. However, I am also keenly aware of how difficult it can be on social media to distinguish both fact from fiction and realistic representations from exaggerations.
Duke Study:
Top IUD Tiktok Videos Often Portray Painful Experiences, Healthcare Mistrust. Duke Health. corporate.dukehealth.org/news/top-iud-tiktok-videos-often-portray-painful-experiences-healthcare-mistrust
Resource Examples (as referred to above):
plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control
nhs.uk/conditions/contraception/
mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/birth-control/in-depth/birth-control-options/