Some doctors in the US and other countries say TikTok videos about Tourette syndrome may be contributing to a rise in cases of teen girls with physical tics
When teens started turning up in doctors' offices with sudden, severe physical tics, specialists suspected social media …
TikTok’s position that 14 implicated accounts did not violate its rules exposes the gap between platform-policy enforcement and clinicians’ concerns about how health content is received and imitated.
First-order effects
Specialists treating adolescents must distinguish sudden physical tics from Tourette syndrome while addressing patients’ exposure to TikTok content.
TikTok faces scrutiny over accounts that may be clinically consequential even when they fall outside its stated rules.
Second-order effects
Health providers’ concerns extend beyond tic content: later reporting connected TikTok use to self-diagnosis of mental illnesses and to ADHD advertising aimed at young users.
Creators presenting disorder-related content become a more consequential source of health framing for teenagers, alongside clinical care.
Third-order effects
If this pattern persists across conditions, short-form platforms will increasingly be treated as part of the environment clinicians must assess when diagnosing adolescent symptoms.
The central policy question shifts from whether individual posts violate rules to whether recommendation and health-content systems account for foreseeable harms from repeated exposure.
The trend: Social platforms are becoming an influential, poorly bounded layer of adolescent health information, self-diagnosis, and clinical presentation.
In the last year, cases of motor/vocal tics (Tourette's) in teen girls have spiked. As is historically true with anything that happens in large numbers to teen girls, certain media outlets have turned this into a bit of a joke. TikTok tics. Google it. (2/...)
@joannastern
Joanna Stern on x
TicTok? A fascinating @juliejargon column about how there has been a mysterious rise in cases of teen girls with physical tics and how it seems to lead back to watching Tourette syndrome TikTok videos https://www.wsj.com/...
@shane25873
Shane Matthew Neave on x
Watched a video that pissed me off, as someone who lives with mild Tourette's, also Parkinson's-like tremors, & tardive dyskinesia. A YouTuber has Tourette's, but faking a lot of it, for views. This has lead to teen girls who are fans, developing a psychological tic condition.
@timjhanrahan
Tim Hanrahan on x
To unlearn these tics, doctors recommend cognitive behavioral therapy and tell patients to stay off TikTok for several weeks. https://www.wsj.com/...
@wallernikki
Nikki Waller on x
Teen girls are turning up with unexplained tics. Their doctors found one thing in common: most watched Tourette videos on TikTok. https://www.wsj.com/...
@juliejargon
Julie Jargon on x
A mysterious rise in cases of teen girls with sudden severe physical tics, including jerking motions and verbal outbursts—and sometimes blurting out the word “beans”—led doctors to TikTok https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ
@carnage4life
Dare Obasanjo on x
Unfortunately TikTok has little incentive to research this since the media will call it a “big tobacco moment” if their research finds any correlation. Sadly without such research you can't figure out if there is a problem or evaluate solutions. https://www.wsj.com/...
@brianroemmele
Brian Roemmele on x
“Teen Girls Are Developing Tics. Doctors Say TikTok Could Be a Factor”—WSJ There are few accidents in the algorithm used to shape thoughts of young minds. In a century they will look for those who noticed but went along with the fashionable. TikTok—Tics https://www.wsj.com/...