Watching TikTok videos might cause you to develop tics - here’s why

In June 2019, psychiatrist Dr. Kirsten Müller-Vahl from the medical school in Hanover, Germany, encountered a strange mystery. The Tourette’s ward she was responsible for was flooded with patients with symptoms she couldn’t explain. There were dozens of teens and people in their 20s who were never diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome, but suddenly began to suffer from the "tics" that characterize it.

Dr. Müller-vahl has treated Tourette's for 25 years. She says the syndrome is most often diagnosed at a very young age, usually around age six, and is more common in boys. 

In addition, the "tics" that characterize the disease are usually unique to each person. 

In this case, more young women and girls came to the ward, and all the new patients, who as mentioned had never been diagnosed with the syndrome, suffered from the exact same "tics.” They mainly shouted “flying shark,” “you’re ugly” or “heil Hitler.”

Her ward soon discovered that the new patients were mimicking the "tics" of a young German named Jan Zimmerman, who runs a popular YouTube page where he shares how he copes with Tourette's disease. Over the past two years, Zimmerman has managed to become a beloved YouTube star, with two million subscribers to his page.

In a study published by Dr. Muller-Vahl in the journal Brain of Oxford Academic publishing, she emphasizes that this isn’t Tourettes, but a completely different problem known in free translation as Functional Movement Disorder (FMD). 

According to her, while Tourette's syndrome develops as a result of neurological damage, people can also develop “tics” from psychological or environmental causes.

When she explained this to new patients who were admitted to the clinic, some of them stopped suffering from these symptoms. Others needed psychotherapy to stop the problem, but the fact that so many young people suffered from exactly the same symptoms fascinated the specialist and the rest of her staff, who wanted to understand exactly why this was happening - and why now.

Mental disorders can spread like a plague 

Throughout history, many psychological phenomena have been recorded that spread in a manner similar to the outbreak of a contagious epidemic. A similar case occurred in 2011 in Le Roy, a small town in northern New York, when a group of girls began to develop "tics" that included facial distortions and verbal outbursts. The really weird thing about the story was that people who read about the case or were exposed to it on social media started to develop these same symptoms.

In the past, experts called such occurrences "mass hysteria." Today it’s referred to by a more politically correct term, Mass Psychogenic Illness. 

Robert Bartholomew, a clinical sociologist, was the first to state in a published study that social networks contribute to the accelerated spread of these symptoms. According to him, throughout history, these outbreaks have in fact been an expression of the most common fears of the period. 

"In the 17th century we had witches, today it's technology," he said.

Today, TikTok is a platform that allows people with Tourette’s to better cope with the challenges they face, and to win the love of the public and hugs from those who weren’t aware of their challenges. The hashtag #tourettes is extremely popular, with 4.6 billion views as of this writing. Experts emphasize that this is a welcome phenomenon, but there may be consequences we’re just beginning to understand.

Recently, many articles have been published by experts warning against this situation, which now has a very catchy name: "TikTok Tics.”

In an article published in the March 2021 edition of the British Medical Journal, a significant increase was reported of women and girls suffering from "tics.” In a more recent study from April 2021, a group of doctors from Texas reported a 60% increase in the number of patients who came to the clinic with tics, compared to the days before coronavirus.

“I have never seen such an increase in distress "

Tamara Pringstein and Davide Martino are neurologists at the University of Calgary in Canada. In 2008, the two opened their Tourette’s treatment clinic, and have since treated an average of 200 new cases a year. Between May 2020 and May 2021, this figure increased to about 300 cases per month on average

According to them, they first noticed this increase in the summer of 2020, as they treated a large wave of young people who suffered from "tics" without ever being diagnosed with Tourette’s.  

Martino said that since then the rate of cases has only risen, until at Christmas he topped out at "astronomical proportions." Here, too, many patients showed exactly the same symptoms, with "tics" that were more or less the same. The two believe that the reason for this increase is partly due to the anxiety created by COVID-19, as well as the fact that many children have increased screen time, especially with Tiktok and other social networks. 

Pringstein stressed that "throughout my career, I have never seen such an increase in distress in young people and teens, it’s frightening."

The data show that in the last decade there has indeed been a continuous and gradual increase in the proportion of young people suffering from tics not related to Tourette’s but many researchers believe that coronavirus has contributed to an even greater acceleration of this strange phenomenon. 

The good news is that this is not really neurological damage and that these problems can be treated relatively easily. But the strange story highlights the need for every parent to pay attention to emotional changes in their children, especially during this period, even if on the surface everything seems to be normal.