Teenage girls experience tics during pandemic, docs blame TikTok

Many teenager girls across the world have been experiencing tics—physical jerking movements since the start of the pandemic. A lot of them have also visited doctors for the problem. 

According to experts at top pediatric hospitals, the teenage girls have been watching and scrolling through a lot of TikTok videos amid the pandemic. The girls with tics had something in common i.e. TikTok. Several medical journal articles found the teenage girls were watching TikTok videos of people who said they had Tourette syndrome.

What is Tourette syndrome? 

It is a genetic nervous-system disorder. It can cause tics, repetitive, involuntary movements, or sounds. Tics typically develop when a person is young and then develop over time.

According to the doctors, the teenagers who came with tics problem have earlier been diagnosed with anxiety or depression and it aggravated due to the pandemic. Dr. Gilbert says, physical symptoms of psychological stress often manifest in ways that patients have seen before in others, Dr. Gilbert said. UK doctors when began the study in January, learnt that there were videos on Tiktok that had hashtag #tourettes with 1.25 billion views, as per their report— the view has since grown to 4.8 billion.

However some of the doctors didn't put the blame on TikTok and said though the number of teenager patients are higher than before, it isn’t an epidemic.

“There are some kids who watch social media and develop tics and some who don’t have any access to social media and develop tics," said Dr. McGuire. “I think there are a lot of contributing factors, including anxiety, depression and stress."

To unlearn these tics, doctors recommend cognitive behavioral therapy and tell patients to stay off TikTok for several weeks.