Pandemic Tic-like Behaviors Following Social Media Consumption

Abstract

Background: Currently, there is a marked increase of young people with sudden onset of tic-like behaviors (TLBs) resembling movements and vocalizations presented on social media videos as “Tourette's syndrome.”. Objective: To delineate clinical phenomenology of TLBs after social media exposure in comparison with clinical features of Tourette's syndrome. Methods: We compared demographic and clinical variables between 13 patients with TLBs and 13 age- and sex-related patients with Tourette's syndrome. Results: Patients with TLBs had several characteristics allowing to distinguish them from patients with Tourette's syndrome, some of which discriminated perfectly (ie, abrupt symptom onset, lack of spontaneous symptom fluctuations, symptom deterioration in the presence of others) and some nearly perfectly (ie, predominantly complex movements involving trunk/extremities). Also, symptom onset was significantly later. Conclusions: TLBs after social media consumption differ from tics in Tourette's syndrome, strongly suggesting that these phenomena are categorically different conditions. © 2021 The Authors. Movement Disorders published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.