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Gen Z Is developing unexplained tics after going online, and doctors are concerned

#1
C C Offline
https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgx3en/g...-concerned

EXCERPT: . . . Doctors who specialize in Tourette’s Syndrome and other tic disorders have turned their attention to people like Turnquist after seeing referrals for these rapid-onset conditions balloon from 1-5 percent of total cases pre-pandemic to 20-35 percent of them now, according to data from a viewpoint study published on August 13.

The researchers describe "a parallel pandemic of young people aged 12 to 25 years (almost exclusively girls and women) presenting with the rapid onset of complex motor and vocal tic-like behaviors," and state "there have been striking commonalities in the phenomenology of these tic-like behaviors observed across our centers in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia."

Curiously, the researchers state that for the patients they studied, in addition to experiencing pandemic-related stressors, "all endorsed exposure to influencers on social media (mainly TikTok) with tics or [Tourette's Syndrome]." Indeed, there are thousands of videos, some with millions of views, in a corner of TikTok affectionately referred to as "Tic Tok." According to the researchers, "In some cases, the patients specifically identified an association between these media exposures and the onset of symptoms…. This exposure to tics or tic-like behaviors is a plausible trigger for the behaviors observed in at least some of these patients, based on a disease modeling mechanism."

A separate article published in July, meanwhile, studied popular TikTok influencers with tics, and found that TikTok tics were "distinct" from typical Tourette's symptoms. "We believe this to be an example of mass sociogenic illness, which involves behaviors, emotions, or conditions spreading spontaneously through a group," the authors wrote.

Now beginning a PhD in molecular immunology and cancer biology at Dartmouth, Turnquist said that her STEM background positioned her better than most to parse through the most recent research on sudden-onset tic disorders, and she agreed with the researchers’ conclusions: “I feel like the stressors of the pandemic were a lot, and it probably pushed some threshold over the edge.”

[...] Pringsheim, Martino and other researchers working on this phenomenon believe that the stress of the past year—from lockdowns to school closures to social isolation—coupled with pre-existing mental health conditions in some cases led this population to subconsciously require an outlet for their distress. In other words, researchers currently believe the condition does not have a genetic component to its origin like Tourette's, but rather environmental or psychological ones.
According to the researchers’ theory, seeing popular creators with tic disorders on social media sites was the match that ignited the kindling. TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.

[...] Tics and tic-like behaviors can spread on the internet outside of TikTok, too. An article published August 23 in the journal Brain detailed German clinicians’ anecdotal experience of noticing an increase in patients with tic-like behaviors over the past two years that bore a resemblance to those that a popular YouTuber documented on the platform. The researchers theorized that the condition affecting their patients was a form of mass sociogenic illness—a poorly understood and contentious phenomenon once called mass hysteria...

[...] Not all clinicians agree with this assessment. An editorial published in April in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood suggested that future studies can test hypotheses related to mass sociogenic illness and a possible biological mechanism. And Martino said that the role of social media has been overemphasized, and it is just one factor among many in the development of these tic-like behaviors... (MORE - missing details)
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#2
Syne Offline
Girls/women online crave attention, and when they see someone getting attention, including people with actual Tourette's, they emulate that behavior. Nothing more complicated than that. The pandemic only gave them so much more time to watch online content and fewer real life interactions to mediate such emulation.
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#3
stryder Offline
Some years back I started suffering a bizarre effect after playing thousands of hours of battlefield games online. I'd suffer from cold shivers, uncontrollable shaking and it only seemed to be staved off by drinking huge amounts of coffee so as to over-stimulate beyond that level of effect.

What it was down to was the stress of trying to compete with other people online in mass multiplayer environments. What furthered the problem was it would make me make slip ups while playing, if you are trying to get the drop on someone in a game then staying calm is a must however I would end up button mangling and failing at the simplest of executions.

I could play for hours against an AI, attempting to learn how to exploit it's weaknesses etc (Without the cold sweats or shakes) but when it came to humans the concern was trying to compete with an unknown quantative at a level beyond my own. In some respects playing against a human is "paradoxical" compared to the cold logic of a machine that will usually respond the way it's programmed to.

(In fact I now loath playing against people online and only on the odd occasion do I get the chance to play various co-operative modes with people where the environment or AI is what we are against)

The problem I suffered actually started me thinking along the lines of quantum effects and paradoxes caused by interaction (Consider that what interaction you see from an online game is actually slightly delayed due to processing information at the server as well as other players systems.) the small delays might not be observably noticible however they could effect how we physically interact with the world. Which in turn would cause chemical and neurological changes which could well cause tics.

Of course it can be blamed on an underlining condition, Game created PTSD, hysteria etc.

Furthermore consider that the world in which we exist is now being influenced by AI. It can process big data, look at who we are and what we like, and then start to apply advertisement that suits our wants or needs. This is an action that would have occurred originally, especially at such a speed, so again there could be quantum effects caused by something that is itself not natural. (e.g. someone buys something because an advert pops up showing an offer, an offer they wouldn't of had previously without such technology present.)

Side note: If Quantum effect do effect us in such a manner, perhaps Epilepsy is effected by it.
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