Media literacy amid true crime mobs and ADHD

Psychiatric nurse practitioner Jonathan Murphy, PMHNP-BC, connects the dots between true crime consumption, mob psychology, and ADHD executive function. In this episode of Actually ADHD, we discuss how information bypasses logical thought, why intelligent people lose rationality inside mobs, the DSM-5-TR definition of trauma through media exposure, the difference between the Karen Read and Lindsay Clancy cases, and how law tubers pivoting from one trial to the next reveals more about the business model than the justice system.

This is not a true crime breakdown. This is a mental health professional explaining what consuming true crime is doing to your brain.

The first crime statistics published for public consumption changed nothing about the crime rate. They changed the perception of it. (New York City, late 1800s)

DSM-5-TR Criterion A for PTSD includes exposure to traumatic material through electronic media — if it's part of your job. True crime creators qualify. (APA, 2022)

Astroturfing: a coordinated effort to manufacture a grassroots movement. If you don't know whether the comments you're reading are bots, you can't know what the consensus actually is.

Just like we put food in our body, we put information in our mind. Make sure there's a point to it.

Actually ADHD is sponsored by the Focus Path YouTube channel — practical ADHD strategies from a nurse practitioner with 20,000+ hours of clinical experience. Subscribe at @FocusPathSystems

The Process: An Adult's Guide to ADHD Medication — available now on Amazon