This post should really be titled “The Obligatory ChatGPT Blog Post”. Everyone is talking about ChatGPT these days, and with good reason: it’s actually pretty competent. But is it good enough to write your marketing content for you?
In this post, I break down a ChatGPT article for mental health, analyze its strengths and weaknesses, and put my English tutor hat on (yes, I really was an English tutor) and grade its effort.
ChatGPT is getting so much buzz right now because it appears to offer a tantalizing short cut. Let’s face it, writing is hard! Coming up with original ideas, constructing them into a coherent narrative, all while trying to naturally work keywords into your post to increase SEO benefit – who has time for all that?
ChatGPT seems like an answer to prayer: pass it a prompt, let it write the article for you, then simply post it straight to your blog and kick back and relax. Who wouldn’t want to generate content that way? Sounds very tempting.
I know. I was tempted. So I put ChatGPT to the test. I asked it to write a blog post about anxiety. Our clients at Mindhealth Media are in the mental health industry, so writing a blog post about anxiety seemed like a reasonable test for ChatGPT. How did it do?
Mental Health Article Written Entirely by ChatGPT
Prompt: Write an article about anxiety and available treatments for anxiety
Here is the unedited ChatGPT article in its entirety:
Anxiety is a common mental health disorder that affects millions of people worldwide. It is characterized by persistent and excessive worry, fear, and nervousness that interfere with daily activities and personal relationships. Anxiety can also manifest physically, causing symptoms such as rapid heartbeat, sweating, trembling, and difficulty breathing.
Fortunately, there are several treatments available for anxiety that can help individuals manage their symptoms and improve their quality of life.
Psychotherapy
One of the most effective treatments for anxiety is psychotherapy, which involves talking with a trained mental health professional. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy that has been shown to be particularly effective for anxiety. CBT focuses on identifying negative thoughts and behaviors and replacing them with more positive and adaptive ones. It also teaches individuals coping strategies, such as relaxation techniques, that can be used to manage anxiety symptoms.
Medications
In addition to psychotherapy, medications can also be effective in treating anxiety. Antidepressants, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), are often prescribed for anxiety disorders. These medications work by altering the balance of chemicals in the brain that affect mood and anxiety levels. Benzodiazepines, another class of medications, can also be effective in reducing anxiety symptoms, but they are generally only prescribed for short-term use due to the risk of dependence and addiction.
Lifestyle changes
Making certain lifestyle changes can also help manage anxiety symptoms. Regular exercise, for example, has been shown to reduce anxiety levels and improve overall mental health. Eating a balanced diet, getting enough sleep, and avoiding alcohol and caffeine can also help reduce anxiety symptoms. Additionally, mindfulness practices, such as meditation and yoga, can be effective in reducing anxiety levels.
Conclusion
Anxiety can be a debilitating mental health disorder that affects many individuals. However, effective treatments are available that can help manage anxiety symptoms and improve overall mental health. Psychotherapy, medications, and lifestyle changes are all effective approaches for treating anxiety. If you or a loved one is struggling with anxiety, it is important to seek the help of a trained mental health professional to develop an individualized treatment plan.
Analysis of ChatGPT’s Article About Anxiety
The total word count for the article came in at 353 words – a bit light for a serious blog post from a mental health practice looking to educate patients. Still, it might work for a lighter blog, such as a lifestyle or health and wellness blog looking to just skim the surface of the topic. This article length is typical of ChatGPT output: articles on other topics I’ve asked ChatGPT to write came in at roughly the same wordcount, between 350 and 430 words. Other ChatGPT users report that 500 words seems to be about the maximum word length it will produce.
First, the positives: ChatGPT writes legible content, free from grammar and spelling errors. Should you decide to use ChatGPT as your content writer you can rest reasonably assured that you won’t be embarrassed by errors in spelling or grammar. So it’s already ahead of 80 percent of internet content! (I jest, I jest. Sort of.)
ChatGPT also did a good job of constructing the article in a logical fashion. The first paragraph serves as a reasonable introduction, there is a transition statement, three common treatments are listed and described, and there is a concluding paragraph that summarizes the information. A reader can easily follow the article structure and understand the writer’s intent. You know, just like we learned in high school. Which leads me to . . .
Criticism #1
ChatGPT writes like a high school student, and this is not a good thing. The writing is too perfunctory, like a high school student first learning to construct an essay. “OK, I need an intro paragraph, three supporting statements, and a conclusion. Done.” While this is the way we learn to write explanatory information, such as this sample article, it is not the way we continue to write such information, at least not professionally. Why? Because the information comes across as stilted and artificial. We can almost picture ChatGPT looking at the teacher’s example article on one screen and making sure each content block was mirrored in its own article, precisely as instructed.
Criticism #2
ChatGPT favors generalities over specificity. One of the keys of good writing is to focus on specifics. Don’t describe a large crowd – focus instead on the one woman in the crowd who is representative of the crowd as a whole. Describe her. The crowd will be much more memorable to the reader, even though you only described one person.
Let’s look at the opening sentence:
Anxiety is a common mental health disorder that affects millions of people worldwide.
Even though “millions of people worldwide” seems specific, it’s not. It’s a high schooler’s attempt to produce a statistic. The reader is left to ask: How many million worldwide? How common is it – are we talking one in ten or four out of five people have it? Alas, ChatGPT does not give us the specifics. (In case you’re wondering – about 30 percent of the population will experience anxiety disorder at some point in their lives, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. At any given time, an estimated 15 to 40 million people in the U.S. are dealing with anxiety, which is 7 to 19 percent of the U.S. population. Worldwide the estimate is 275 million people, about 4 percent of the global population. Clearly we in the U.S. are overachievers when it comes to anxiety!)
Let’s look at another example:
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy that has been shown to be particularly effective for anxiety.
Again, we ask, how effective? What is the success rate for CBT and how does it compare to other treatments? Once again, ChatGPT doesn’t provide the answer. (For the curious: a review of studies that examined the long-term success rate of CBT for anxiety showed remission rates between 46 percent and 85 percent for study participants).
Providing more specific information, such as actual results, makes the information more credible and easier to retain. Our brains can focus on a number range (between 46 percent and 85 percent). We now have something concrete to associate CBT with. Our brains do not get the same foothold from the statement: “has been shown to be particularly effective for anxiety.”
Criticism #3
The content is unsatisfying. There are a couple of reasons why the content is unsatisfying to the reader. First, the content is simply flat. There is no sparkle to it, nothing that catches the reader’s imagination. Even explanatory articles should include examples, related issues, comparisons between the treatment options discussed, or some other attempt to breathe life into the text. We get none of that from ChatGPT. Instead, we get a bland regurgitation of information, all of which could be found elsewhere. There is nothing unique.
Secondly, it’s unsatisfying to the reader because it doesn’t tell the reader much. Someone researching anxiety who came across this article as their first result would inevitably need to turn to other sources. There’s simply not enough here to decide on next steps, determine a treatment option, or even understand the topic of anxiety enough to feel satisfied. The reader is left wanting.
ChatGPT Grade
Alas, due to the issues discussed above, ChatGPT does not meet this English tutor’s standard for compelling writing. ChatGPT earns a B minus.
Conclusion
Can you use ChatGPT to write content for your mental health practice? Of course you can. Should you use ChatGPT? Will that content represent your practice well? Unfortunately, no. The quality is simply lacking, for the reasons discussed above.
But wait! Is there another way? Not ready to give up on the hope that ChatGPT will solve your writing woes forever?
There may be hope for you yet. In Part 2 of this article, I’ll explore how ChatGPT can still lift a lot of the writing burden by using it for what it’s actually good at. In addition, we’ll look at how to make up for ChatGPT’s shortcomings with some good old-fashioned creativity. You know . . . like what a writer does?