#HealthMisinformation

A new analysis suggests personality traits help explain why educated people sometimes adopt extreme wellness trends. The finding matters because these trends can harm health and spread misinformation online (The Conversation).

Wellness fads now spread fast on social media. Some trends pose real risks like raw diets or dangerous unproven therapies. Others remain harmless but lead followers toward more extreme beliefs. The Conversation review links these patterns to two personality traits in the Big Five model.

Revolutionary psychological research has identified specific personality traits that make highly educated Thai professionals particularly vulnerable to potentially harmful wellness trends, revealing why intelligence and advanced degrees provide no protection against health misinformation that can lead to serious medical complications. The findings expose how legitimate curiosity and social values become manipulated by sophisticated marketing campaigns that target Thailand’s most accomplished citizens.

The research carries urgent implications for Thailand’s healthcare system and digital media landscape, where wellness influencers increasingly target educated urban professionals through psychologically sophisticated campaigns that exploit natural human tendencies toward exploration and community connection. These targeting strategies have proven remarkably effective at convincing doctors, engineers, university professors, and other highly trained professionals to adopt unproven health practices that may compromise their wellbeing.

Groundbreaking research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has uncovered compelling evidence that ordinary people unconsciously contribute to the growth of their own information bubbles, simply through the way they type search queries online. This large-scale study, encompassing 21 experiments and nearly 10,000 participants, demonstrates that even without any intent to seek confirmation, our habitual online search patterns—and the algorithms designed to respond to them—subtly guide us towards ever-narrower realities. These findings have huge implications for how Thais access information, understand national debates, and engage with global topics in a time when digital literacy is crucial for an informed society (PsyPost).

The explosive rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools has ushered in a new wave of deceptive online marketing, with AI-generated “deepfakes” flooding platforms such as TikTok to push unverified—and often dangerous—sexual health cures and supplements. Recent investigations reveal that these convincing but fraudulent videos, which often feature deepfaked celebrities and so-called “AI doctors,” are duping millions of viewers worldwide and putting public health at risk, according to a report by AFP published on Tech Xplore (techxplore.com).

Scrolling through TikTok or social media, many Thai readers may have encountered alarming claims asserting that stress-induced cortisol is the main culprit behind stubborn belly fat and unwanted facial changes, often labelled “cortisol belly” and “cortisol face”. However, a recent analysis published by The Conversation dispels much of this online panic, highlighting that the scientific evidence paints a far more nuanced picture and suggesting Thais need not obsess over this hormonal hype.