Neurologists have established a link between the appearance of Gilles de la Tourette syndrome in some young women and their extensive use of TikTok. Coming out of confinement, a period when the social network exploded, they complained of multiple nervous tics in the face. It is not yet clear why men are less affected.
We knew that TikTok wanted your personal data, we knew less thathe also resents your health. While the issue of preserving mental health on social media is on everyone’s lips, the app is in the sights of many. Indeed, multiple challenges endangering users quickly become viral, while its population is mostly made up of people under 30. TikTok goes to great lengths to restore its image, including offering a number to users with suicidal thoughts, but that is not enough to counter the growing discomfort.
Meanwhile, a recent Canadian study is likely to ignite the powder. In the latter, neurologists demonstrate that there is a link between the appearance of Gilles de la Tourette syndrome and the intense use of the social network. As a reminder, this disease manifests itself in sudden and uncontrollable tics. It is often illustrated in the form of insults pronounced involuntarily, but this aspect is far from covering all the symptoms derived from the pathology. What is certain, however, is that TikTok’s recent popularity dovetails with an increase in Tourette cases.
TikTok causes neurological disorders in its users
“Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, our colleagues working in eight different Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (SGT) clinics around the world have witnessed a parallel pandemic of young people aged 12 to 25 (almost exclusively girls and women) with the rapid onset of complex motor and vocal tic-type behaviors ”, explains neurologist Davide Martino. The latter emphasizes that “In addition to suffering the stress and anxiety linked to Covid, these young girls were more exposed to influencers with tics or Gilles de la Tourette syndrome which would have obviously had an impact on themselves”.
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Indeed, the #TicTok hasstag has been very popular on the platform since the start of the pandemic, thus exposing many people to this problem and, obviously, at the same time triggering the first symptoms. At present, it is not known why women are more affected than men. Note, however, that the majority of patients already showed signs of anxiety before illness breaks out, although not everyone does. “We believe this is an example of a mass sociogenic disease, which involves behaviors, emotions or conditions that spread spontaneously in a group”, can we read in thestudy.