What's going wrong with social media?

Welcome to the Business of Psychology podcast. I have been wanting to make a podcast for a while about the reasons that I've stepped back a little bit in my use of social media and the changes that I've made and that I've encouraged my clients in my coaching programs to make in the way that we view it and the way that we use it. Because I'm aware that for a lot of us at the moment, social media feels like a very heavy place. There's a lot of pressure, there's a lot of negativity, and if we're not mindful about how we are using it, it can take a really big emotional toll. I feel like because we talk on this podcast about the advantages of using social media to market, to reach your people who need you in your practice, it's also important to talk about how to manage our wellbeing as we do that, and also how to make sure we're putting content out there that feels aligned with our values and that feels professionally fulfilling, because in some ways I feel the platforms drag us away from those values.

Full show notes for this episode are available at The Business of Psychology

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Shownotes

Is there a helpful way for psychologists and therapists to use social media in 2026?

The thing that I'm going to talk about the most in this episode is being mindful of the priorities of social media companies and developing an awareness that they're not neutral tools. They have business models that are designed to sell attention by amplifying the things which people can't resist, which are usually negativity and anger. That can be really detrimental to our own wellbeing, and if we're not careful, it can be detrimental to our client groups too. I’m also going to talk about the positivity and the nuance in that; it is not all bad, there's a lot of good that we can still do with social media, but only if we are mindful of its inherent design flaws and the pitfalls that I see a lot of us falling into.

What we’re seeing on social media

Let's start by talking about what a lot of us are seeing on social media. When I go to networking events and I meet up with my coaching clients, a lot of us are witnessing stuff on social media that's really upsetting. And I don't mean the stuff from unregulated people giving bad advice and misinformation. That's been going on as long as there has been social media and it's bad, but I'm not seeing more of it than I saw five years ago. I'm seeing about the same number of unqualified people telling me things that they have no business to tell me. But what I am seeing more of, maybe just because I'm spending more time looking than I was previously, but I feel like it is an upwards trend, are discussions or debates on social media, particularly LinkedIn and Facebook, between professionals who are properly qualified that turn into like skirmishes. Often these are on topics which are highly emotive for many of us. The ones which get served up to me all the time, because my children have additional needs, are usually around topics like neurodiversity, neuro affirmative practice, and causes and cures for autism, in particular. Those are all topics which I do know a fair amount about. Since my children started to struggle and I went through the diagnostic process, I think I've probably read more on those topics than I have on anything else in my entire life. I keep really up to date with the evidence base, and I have read most of the seminal texts that I've been able to get my hands on in those areas. And the thing that I have taken away from all of that reading and research is that it is really nuanced and complicated and nobody is really right. There's a lot that I like and that I think has a good grounding in evidence in neuro affirmative practice. Certainly, the positive impact on identity formation and the value of neuro affirmative therapy and coaching for people, I see that and I like it, and I recognise it, and I think it can't be ignored, and it shouldn't be ignored. But it's also true that a lot of the people putting out their views about neuro affirmation and the principles of neurodiversity, are spreading misinformation about the way that the brain works and about how solid the evidence base is for brain-based differences between particularly autistic and ADHD brains and neurotypical brains. And I don't like that. I don't like the kind of division that's created between neurotypicals and neurodivergence, because I don't think that is evidence-based, and I don't think that will help people in the end. But having said that, it's also not true to say that the evidence shows no brain-based differences. I've seen some really invalidating stuff on there where people who, like me, are a little bit sceptical about building identity around one particular label, have then taken it to the point where they're saying that people shouldn't be using these labels at all, that we are massively over diagnosed and that these labels are not helpful. And that's not true either. I mean, my children would not be okay without their labels. People need them to get what they need in a society that we have built around labelling people. And so the idea that people are wrong for finding those useful, or that clinicians are wrong for using labels in the system that we operate in is also bizarre.

I suppose the reason that I've gone on this sidebar slightly is that this is a difficult and nuanced point. Nobody is really wrong, nobody is really right, and yet what I see on social media is really vitriolic, a lot of sound bites to grab attention, and no space given for this kind of both/and position, which is a painful one to hold. It isn't much fun being a parent of children that need a lot of additional support to be sitting here, bum on the fence, a spiky fence, being like, okay, I see the good, I see the bad, on balance we’re going to go with the labels because they're going to do more good than harm, but I can't fully commit myself to the idea of building a whole identity around any label. It feels uncomfortable. It feels like I don't have a home. But the reality is, when I talk to people in person, and I meet a lot of people that I've seen online in person, most people are falling where I am. Most people are really nuanced about it, a bit torn apart by it. They've read the same evidence that I have, and come to the same conclusion that actually we're in this really tricky grey space, but nobody is representing that online, even if it's what they think really. I think that's because the platforms encourage us to speak in a way that we wouldn't speak professionally if we were in a room together. Complex topics get reduced to these short, extreme, and often un-evidenced claims, like no brain-based differences, or CBT is harmful to people with autism. Those are the kind of statements which work really well on social media because they get an argument going and they get rewarded, and so we post more of them. But I actually think they're really doing a lot of harm, not just between professionals. I often really cringe when I see it happening on social media. I might start to feel a bit disillusioned with clinical psychology as a profession, or I might feel a bit shamed or upset if somebody's having a go at something that I've said. It can be difficult for us as professionals, but imagine what it is like if you’re a family going through the most difficult thing you've ever experienced, and then you go onto LinkedIn and you see a load of people who are supposed to be the people giving you advice and guidance, fighting each other. I can't stand it. I can't stand to think about what that experience must be like for people in their most vulnerable moments.

And it's not just happening around neurodiversity, that's just the one I know more about. But I also see it happening a lot around gender identity, for example. I think sometimes when we're posting, we need to be mindful of the vulnerable people who might see it. Maybe they're not the person the post is intended for, maybe it's intended for a professional audience, but it's got your name, it's got your professional title. You are representing a clinical psychologist, or a CBT therapist, or a counsellor to the people that read it. So, if you are getting into a skirmish and having cross words with other professionals on there, that is really confusing to the pers...