Can TikTok Cause Tourettes’?

Tourette’s syndrome is a neurological condition characterized by sudden, repetitive, rapid, and unwanted movements or vocal sounds. This disorder most typically presents between ages 5 and 7 and is four times more common in boys than in girls. This pattern of diagnoses was consistent until the pandemic when doctors began to notice a stark rise of cases in preteen and teen girls. Doctors initially thought that they were observing an isolated phenomenon, but after connecting with other doctors globally, it was revealed to be a trend everywhere. Not only was the demographic of patients similar for these new cases, but the patients even demonstrated the same involuntary behavior. This led doctors to believe that the common denominator in these cases was the usage of a popular social media platform. 

The severity of the outburst and types of uncontrolled behavior in these news cases are much different than what has been observed in patients before the pandemic. Typically, symptoms of Tourette’s would appear gradually early in childhood starting with subtle involuntary movements such as eye blinking, head movements and throat clearing. More complex tics can develop later over a period of months to years after simple tics have been present for some time. However, in the time of the pandemic, the majority of the reported cases were from females who were experiencing a sudden onset of intense symptoms. The sudden onset of unexplained tics only made up a total of 1% of the total Tourette’s cases before the pandemic. Now it makes up 35% of the total cases. 

 

The development of tics is not only known for occurring gradually, but also for developing uniquely to the individual. It fascinated doctors and researchers as to why so many of the new cases of teens experiencing these sudden onset symptoms had the same patterns of behavior. These patterns from these patients included the repetition of seemingly random words and other obscene phrases such as “beans”, “woo-hoo” and “flying shark”. The same hand and arm movements and gestures were also observed throughout this niche of patients. Because of the wide range of geographic locations these cases were reported in, doctors were led to believe social media was the root cause, specifically a very popular platform called TikTok. 

 

The next question that was difficult for doctors to understand is why this phenomenon seemingly started occurring as a consequence of the pandemic. Social media has been around for decades and it hasn’t had this grandiose of an impact on the involuntary movement of the users until this point. Researchers and doctors suspect that the patients are experiencing this movement disorder brought on by stress and anxiety which was suspected to be made worse from the pandemic and teens increased social media use. This begs the question: is it really Tourette’s syndrome? Doctors say that although the behavior of these teens is not indicative of Tourette’s, it is still real and concerning. 

 

In regard to treating these teens experiencing these outbursts, doctors say that they would recommend they engage in behavioral therapy sessions. Although medications have been helpful for treating those who suffer from Tourette’s, those who have been experiencing involuntary movement as a result of learned behavior and stress would benefit more from therapy. With behavioral therapy from trained professionals, these teens can hopefully help channel their stress and anxiety into other things and reduce their involuntary movement.

Source: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/tiktok-causing-tics-in-teen-girls/

“Angela Baily” (7)