A new study published in Schizophrenia Research finds that exposure to online racism is associated with increased odds of psychotic experiences among Black and Asian emerging adults.
The research, led by Hans Y. Oh of the University of Southern California, finds that exposure to online racism significantly increases the odds of experiencing psychotic symptoms among Black American and Asian/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (ANHPI) emerging adults.
The study represents the first empirical investigation to demonstrate a direct association between online racism and psychotic experiences, adding to longstanding literature showing how systemic racism contributes to mental health disparities. While previous studies have linked everyday discrimination to an increased risk of psychosis, this study is the first to highlight how racism in digital contexts poses an additional and distinct risk, above and beyond in-person discrimination and other known predictors like depression, anxiety, and socioeconomic factors.
“To our knowledge,” the authors write, “this was the first study to show the association between online racism and psychotic experiences among Black and ANHPI American emerging adults. We found that online racism significantly increased odds of psychotic experiences, even after accounting for everyday discrimination, total internet use, and mental health (depression and anxiety).”
They continue:
“Extant literature has shown online racism has been linked to greater risk for mental health problems, and our findings add to this literature by showing that online racism is linked to psychotic experiences above and beyond other forms of discrimination while accounting for other psychopathologies.”
Rather than treating psychosis as a decontextualized biomedical anomaly, the findings point to the relational and structural forces, such as racialized digital violence and chronic exposure to online hate, that shape psychological experience. By demonstrating that online racism has a measurable, compounding effect on psychosis risk, the research invites a deeper interrogation of the environments in which suffering is produced and pathologized. It underscores the need to rethink diagnostic categories, treatment priorities, and digital infrastructures in light of the harms imposed by systemic inequality.
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