Why Mental Health × Information Literacy?

• #Operation Policy
• 📰Created: 2025-12-20
• (GitHub Source)
• ja / en

📖Author: Nao

Table of Contents

This page explains why our site addresses “mental health and information literacy”.

Conclusion: Because I felt the need to prevent health damage caused by medical misinformation

After continuously encountering malicious medical misinformation and low-quality articles, I experienced extreme stress, which led to a deterioration in my health and resulted in my being admitted to a psychiatric hospital for protective hospitalization.

Medical misinformation can worsen mental illness, and for someone like me who has trauma from abuse, bullying, and harassment, it was one of the factors that triggered flashbacks.

Specifically, here are some examples of articles with problems related to such harmfulness.

In the current era, mechanisms for properly scrutinising so-called “professionals” on the internet are not adequately established.

There are also malicious cases where individuals spreading medical misinformation use professional titles to generate income.

Consequently, those who are doctors, counsellors, or other professionals strive to avoid spreading misinformation by being cautious and not making careless statements.

However, many articles circulating online carry the risk of containing medical misinformation.

In the modern era, assuming ‘it’s fine because they call themselves a doctor’ or ‘it’s acceptable because they’re a counsellor’ is only unproblematic if the source of responsibility is clearly established and open to challenge. However, the more malicious the information, the more likely it is that individuals exploit professions like “doctor” or ‘counsellor’ to spread medical misinformation. Consequently, judging information solely based on titles has become dangerous.

Why do people spread such medical misinformation?

The primary motivations behind believing or spreading medical misinformation involve complex intertwined desires: the urge to alleviate anxiety by disseminating falsehoods, the wish to belong to a reassuring group, or the need for recognition (belonging and validation needs). Developing resilience against such information necessitates knowledge of “information literacy” and an understanding of mechanisms like “cognitive biases”.

First, regarding malicious intent: it is true that individuals harbouring resentment towards specific persons or groups may deliberately spread misinformation. There are also cases where people falsely claim professional credentials to lure others into expensive therapy. However, there exists a form of well-meaning malice where individuals impulsively borrow credentials to disseminate what they believe to be correct information.

Simultaneously, it is also true that in many instances, perpetrators spread misinformation out of a genuine desire to “help themselves or others”, without malicious intent.

What matters is not whether there is malicious intent, but rather that the recipient of information – particularly critical medical information – must consider not simply “who said it”, but also “whether it is information from a primary public source or secondary information based on that source”, “the credibility of the content”, and “the danger of making hasty judgements”.

Why do articles that stoke anxiety lead people to mistakenly believe the information?

First, let us examine the mechanism of the human brain.

Humans possess a region called the amygdala, which has long governed emotions like anxiety and fear, directly linked to survival instincts.

Even for many people living in the modern era, making decisions directly tied to survival instincts means they cannot avoid judgements influenced by the amygdala.

Conversely, there is the prefrontal cortex, which governs reason. While reason functions as needed, the nature of the brain means that when the amygdala overreacts, the prefrontal cortex’s function can be suppressed, leading to flawed judgements.

For instance, amygdala overreaction is a problem that can affect even well-meaning individuals. For example, under extreme stress, cases where parents are isolated while raising children can significantly increase the likelihood of child abuse occurring. (※ Naturally, I remain firmly opposed to any justification of abuse. )

Research also suggests that when the amygdala becomes overly active, it can perceive threats that do not actually exist. This may heighten aggression, amplify fear responses, lead to a lack of empathy, impair emotional control, and increase defensive aggression.

The amygdala is fundamentally a vital sensor directly linked to survival instincts, but it is also true that it can become a threat when it runs amok.

Even individuals who have lived virtuously under normal circumstances can make poor judgements under extreme stress due to amygdala hyperactivity.

Medical misinformation is merely one such consequence.

Given its importance, the following section outlines how to control “amygdala overdrive” from a neuroscientific perspective, followed by methods to verify information credibility.

Preventing Amygdala Overdrive is Essential to Avoid Swallowing Misinformation Whole

Specifically, there are things individuals can do to prevent swallowing misinformation whole.

To prevent amygdala overdrive, training ‘metacognition’ is crucial.

Here are some methods to achieve this.

1. Mindfulness Training

This practice has been proven essential for managing physical reactions when emotions peak. Mindfulness helps evaluate one’s own feelings and surrounding stimuli, enabling more rational and logical responses. Essentially, it shifts control from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex. A significant brain scan study conducted in 2018 revealed that long-term meditators showed reduced amygdala activation when exposed to negative stimuli. Furthermore, it was found that even novice meditators, after just eight weeks, experienced improved connectivity between the amygdala and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, enhancing their ability to achieve goals and exercise self-control.

2. Acquiring Stress Coping Mechanisms

General stress management involves self-monitoring and understanding one’s state, thereby promoting calm judgement and preventing the amygdala from running amok. Methods range from quick-acting techniques like breathing exercises to long-term habits such as regular exercise, mindfulness, and journaling.

3. Altering the Environment

In highly stressful situations, physically changing one’s surroundings can reactivate cognitive functions. Moving about or distancing oneself from the stressful context can help create a safe space, enabling a more rational perspective on matters.

However, while these individual methods can be effective under conditions where one has some control within their environment, they become considerably more difficult when the environment is fixed and highly stressful.

For instance, slowing one’s breathing can be an effective means, but when the amygdala’s overreaction is at its peak, even thinking ‘I am not calm right now; I need to slow my breathing to think clearly’ requires advanced cognitive processing. This becomes difficult when the neocortex is not functioning properly.

Therefore, rather than individuals attempting to establish such conditions alone, it is necessary to build a societal environment where one can seek help from close support networks or public institutions.

Removing Cognitive Biases to Verify Information Reliability

Even when calm, we can sometimes accept information uncritically. This is termed a “cognitive bias” in psychological terms.

This is because the brain favours efficiency, tending to conserve energy when processing information and making judgements.

The primary cognitive biases (distortions when processing information) are as follows. As others exist, those interested may wish to search for ‘cognitive biases’.

• Confirmation bias : Believing only what one wishes to believe, seeking out information that supports one’s views while ignoring evidence that contradicts them

• Groupthink : Believing information widely held by others to be correct

• False Truth Effect : Repeatedly hearing a statement, even if initially incorrect, leads to it seeming more truthful over time

• Processing Fluency : The tendency to perceive information that is easily understood or familiar as more trustworthy

• Cognitive Shortcuts : Relying on simple cues (such as familiar sources) instead of engaging in deep critical thinking

This is precisely why information literacy and mental health knowledge are crucial

Particularly, the backdrop to misinformation spreading is that when trust in doctors, government, and media declines, people become more susceptible to swallowing false information whole. There are also cases where, even if false information circulates on social media, people are influenced before accurate information spreads, leading to harm.

Modern society is an information society. Even with crawlers and AI, once misinformation spreads, it becomes increasingly difficult to determine whether information is accurate. (Problems include search pollution caused by misinformation, or when individuals posing as medical professionals spread falsehoods, current AI may misjudge this as reliable medical information and include medical misinformation in summaries).

Crawlers and AI struggle to judge whether information is accurate. If misinformation is published and left unchecked to spread, it could potentially cause ongoing harm.

To prevent misunderstandings from such information, this site focuses on information literacy and mental health, aiming to serve as an example of a responsible site, starting at the individual level.