TikTok may be causing ‘tics’ in teenage girls

Parents have noticed their daughters developing ‘tics’ following prolonged social media use post-pandemic

Traditionally tics are more prevalent among young men rather than adolescent women. Tics mimic those commonly found in Tourette syndrome, which is a neurological disorder that causes involuntary vocalisations and movements.

For that reason, medical professionals around the world have been overwhelmed by the onslaught of teenage girls reporting a sudden onset of both physical and verbal tics throughout the pandemic. “As doctors across geographic regions began to communicate with one another, they realised they were all seeing the same thing — around the world,” reports health.org.

“We believe this to be an example of mass sociogenic illness, which involves behaviours, emotions, or conditions spreading spontaneously through a group”

“Initially, everyone thought they were seeing an isolated phenomenon,” Pediatric neurologist Mohammed Aldosari, MD explains, “but it turns out that we’re all seeing it — a different age of onset, and disturbingly, an explosive onset. In just a few hours, maybe a day or two, girls who have no history of tics suddenly start to experience a lot of movement and vocalisation.”

Before the pandemic, ‘unexplained' tics accounted for about 1% of total tic disorder cases. However an study undertaken by the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society found that they now account for up to 35% of cases

The study found that “Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our colleagues working at eight different Tourette syndrome (TS) clinics globally have witnessed a parallel pandemic of young people aged 12 to 25 years (almost exclusively girls and women) presenting with the rapid onset of complex motor and vocal tic-like behaviours.”

Another study by the same organisation named ‘TikTok Tics: A Pandemic Within a Pandemic’ explained that “During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of this site [TikTok] greatly expanded. Tic and Tourette syndrome content also increased dramatically along with the number of patients with tics in neurology clinics.”

The paper found that tics brought on by TikTok are not like to the tics traditionally seen by practitioners, “TikTok tics are distinct from what is typically seen in patients with Tourette syndrome, although share many characteristics with functional tics. We believe this to be an example of mass sociogenic illness, which involves behaviors, emotions, or conditions spreading spontaneously through a group.”

According to Dr Aldosari teenagers who are prone to depression and anxiety are more likely to develop the condition. And as teenage girls are more exposed to social media and stressing factors on social media sites, it may explain the rise in tics in teenage girls, in particular.