User generated content is any content that is created by someone that gets posted to a website, whether they own the site or not. Many sites run almost exclusively off of user generated content, namely social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. The recent influx of user generated content has a lot of consequences, some good and some bad. Whether it is for the greater good or bad is up for debate, but one thing is certain, UGC is not going away anytime soon.
There are upsides and downsides to UGC. In a nutshell, some of the upsides include the availability of highly targeted and customized consumable content, the ability to create and publish your own content, and the democratization of information. Some of the downsides include the lack of a oversight to ensure that the content is factually accurate, the possibility of being falsely represented by someone, and how it could possibly be putting traditional journalist's jobs in jeopardy (which could be an upside or downside depending on one's current opinion of traditional journalism).
I'd like to share my own experience with UGC as it relates to mental health and well-being. I have OCD, not the cutesy "I have to have all my pencils aligned parallel lol", but like washing hands so much that they sometimes bleed OCD. This is obviously not normal, and falls into the domain of this blog, psychology and social media. So how has UGC helped me with this? I have found amazing resources from Youtubers, Facebook groups, and personal blogs about things people have tried to help their OCD, how OCD is treated professionally, how to stay calm during an anxiety attack, how to try to cope with OCD in a healthy and productive manner, etc. This is something that would probably not be explored into as much depth in Psychology Today magazine as it is in some Youtube channels and such that I have gotten information from. Some channels are devoted to just OCD, and deliver content covering many different and idiosyncratic elements within the domain of OCD. This is why UGC can be a good thing in terms of mental health.
However, the very thing that makes UGC so valuable to mental health patients is the thing that can be harmful to them. That is, the fact that anybody can say (almost) anything, even if they don't have any credentials or experience with the subject matter at all. So for the OCD example, someone could get on and make a Youtube video about how when you feel the need to "ritualize" (which basically means doing the action or thought that will make the anxiety temporarily cease), you should ritualize just to make the anxiety stop and keep doing that to stop the anxiety when it comes and basically run away from your problems and fears. That is, according to the theory of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), a very unhealthy coping habit, and will only make the condition worsen. But since the information was delivered via a UGC platform, anyone could upload a video saying that, and the ignorant viewer may not know it is bad information, which could possibly make their condition worse. One of the ways the can sort of get an idea of whether information is good is to read any comments or rating systems that video has on the website it was posted on. Sometimes the community of commenters will provide further information on whether the information in the video is true or false, but then again, since the commenter is using a UGC platform, they could be right or wrong. This means that if you are using UGC to get health advice, you should always cross-check it with credible sources like doctors, licensed therapists, nutritionalists, scholarly articles, etc.
Even though UGC has downsides, I think it is ultimately for the better. It is important that consumers of UGC that pertains to important things, like health advice, career advice, etc, exercise diligence in cross-checking claims to make sure the information they are getting is good. In my opinion, if one exercises this type of discipline, UGC content will most likely be beneficial to them since it will probably contain information that they might not find in traditional information sources.
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