5 minute read
SOCIAL MEDIA WITH AMELIA
TIKTOK TICS
BY AMELIA WATERS
The popularity of the social media platform TikTok is no secret. The short video platform made its debut in August of 2019 and skyrocketed with followers during the global shutdown in March of 2020.
According to its parent company Bytedance, TikTok currently has one billion users; many of those users are teens. Last year, market research company Forrester found in their “Forrester Analytics Consumer Technographics US Youth Survey 2021,” that 63 percent of Americans 12 to 17 years of age used TikTok on a weekly basis, compared to 57 percent for Instagram.
Like most social media platforms, TikTok is designed to keep the user engaged for hours. But this addicting platform is greatly affecting our youth, particularly adolescent girls. “We can clearly see that the algorithms used in apps like TikTok are designed to keep the user engaged on a subject or subjects for as long as possible,” says Richard Simmons, M.D., Managing Physician of the Child Neurology Group in Clifton Park, New York. “In the Spring of 2020, I saw the first of what would be about 75 girls (and 1 boy) with new-onset and dramatic tic-like movements. After the first few girls presented, the pattern began to emerge of girls between 12 and 18 years old performing numerous repetitive movements and repeating phrases that were often similar in their appearance.”
Dr. Simmons stated this is not how Tourette’s Syndrome happens, although many girls on the platform who developed tics claim to have Tourette’s, Simmons urged tics from TikTok is not the same as the neurological disorder. After speaking with other colleagues in the child neurology field, Simmons discovered they were seeing
the same issue. “There are hundreds, if not thousands of videos of girls with self-proclaimed Tourette’s Syndrome showing off all their different tics to one another. Initially, we felt the girls presenting to the office were mimicking these videos – likely triggered by the dramatic degree of stress they were under from the isolation of the pandemic.” Simmons went on to say that struggle for “likes” or to be popular on the platform may have contributed to the number of girls having ticks. “There was a shift, however, when new users began to pop up on TikTok with nearly identical ‘tics’ and videos about the struggles of their diagnosis. Interestingly, when the vaccine became available for the 12-15 age range, and social activity began to pick up, I lost about 90% of these patients (never showed up for follow-up).”
But tics aren’t the only way TikTok is affecting our teens, the common struggle to be popular draws teens in, “TikTok is designed to be addictive, and fosters the urge to “fit in” with trends,” said Simmons, “TikTok is rapid-cycling and creates a perpetual FOMO for kids. It started with dances and has devolved into incredibly negative trends – to the point where schools were shut down earlier this year because of coordinated threats of violence shared on TikTok. The repeated exposure to negative trends, misinformation, and “challenges” makes TikTok both alluring and potentially dangerous for teenagers.
TikTok can have similar effects on adults but nearly to the same extent. “Most adults have established their identities and have shifted in their developmental goals where fitting in and being up on the newest trend is less important,” said Simmons. “I did have a single parent who had developed the “tics” seen in TikTok videos and they were identical to all the teenagers I had seen.”
Simmons went on to say that most people who came to him with tics were already diagnosed and being treated for things like ADHD, anxiety, and depression.
TikTok also fuels fearmongering, “The “Tourette Syndrome” being perpetuated on TikTok is not, in fact, truly Tourette Syndrome. It falls under the category of psychogenic illness and likely amounts to the most widespread case of mass hysteria in human history. It will go away as we have seen most of our patients improve and move forward with life,” said Simmons. Simmons warned parents to keep in mind the financial gain most social media developers have, “App developers have revenue in mind and the mental or physical wellbeing of its users are rarely taken into consideration. We must be aware of trendy apps and use them ourselves to see potential pitfalls. We also need to make our patients aware of the dangers of social media even though it’s just an app on a phone.”
Although the phenomenon of TikTok seems to be taking over Gen Z, it’s not quite as popular as Google’s YouTube. In 2021, YouTube was used weekly by 72 percent of American teens – that’s up from 69 percent in 2020, according to Forrester. Behind YouTube and TikTok is Snapchat, which is used by 54 percent of US Gen Z in 2021 and 2020.
Bottom line and this will not be a newsflash to Gen Y and Millennials, put down the phone and do other activities. The good news: most of the crisis around Covid is clearing and life seems to be returning to somewhat normal as it was before the pandemic.
