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A rise in TikTok videos highlighting tics seemingly effects symptoms in viewers.
Heather Riordan, M.D., is an assistant professor of pediatric neurology at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt. Her research interests focus on new treatments for Tourette syndrome and dyskinetic cerebral palsy as well as the impact of familial Huntington's disease on at-risk children.
David Isaacs, M.D., M.P.H., is an assistant professor of neurology in the Division of Movement Disorders at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. His research interests focus on sensory and other non-motor aspects of Tourette syndrome, non-motor manifestations of Huntington’s disease, and clinical outcomes of deep brain stimulation in movement disorders.
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An increase in sudden onset vocal and body tics are being noted by pediatricians at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital, echoing a phenomenon that has garnered international attention .
“A large number of teenagers are presenting with abrupt-onset, severe tics,” said Heather Riordan, M.D. , a pediatric neurologist at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, explaining a phenomenon that has been noted throughout the country.
Riordan estimates she is now seeing nearly twice the number of patients presenting with involuntary facial and body spasms as she did pre-pandemic, with new cases arriving every week. The presentation is more consistent with functional tic disorders than Tourette syndrome. Affected patients are most commonly adolescent girls displaying involuntary movements and vocalizations, and she says social media may be a contributor.
“It is interesting that this increase in cases correlates with the onset of the pandemic and a rise in TikTok videos of teenage girls with tics,” Riordan said.
The International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society has published an analysis of the most popular TikTok videos featuring tics. Researchers found behaviors displayed on social media are distinct from Tourette syndrome symptoms and may represent a novel functional movement disorder, “social contagion” or a “mass sociogenic illness.”
Regardless of the nomenclature, interest in tics is on the rise on social media.
“Within a three-week period in March of 2021, views of videos with the keywords #tourette and #tic increased by 7 percent to a total of 5.8 billion views,” the authors wrote.
Social media can be empowering for young people, Riordan noted, and commonly links people with specific conditions .
“Many patients with tics, either in the context of Tourette syndrome or of functional tic disorders, are posting videos about how their condition impacts daily living. The platform has offered a way for this group to feel connected and validated,” Riordan said.
“It is important to recognize that kids are not faking their symptoms.”
Representation may be particularly important for teenagers learning to manage tics. On TikTok, 25 percent of users are ages 10-19, making it an ideal platform for sharing the teenage tic experience. Young viewers, however, are particularly vulnerable to deleterious effects of seeing severe symptoms for extended periods, Riordan says.
“Unfortunately, watching these videos can worsen tics related to both Tourette syndrome and functional movement disorders.”
David Isaacs, M.D. , a neurologist in the Division of Movement Disorders at Vanderbilt University Medical Center has noticed a similar uptick in tics.
“This phenomenon of functional tics is currently widespread in the United States and Europe, and possibly globally,” Isaacs said. “We are seeing a large number of such cases here at Vanderbilt, though how much sites like TikTok specifically are contributing is somewhat ambiguous.”
Together with colleagues, Riordan and Isaacs offer comprehensive care for children and adults with tics, many seeking services through the Vanderbilt Tourette Syndrome Clinic . The clinic’s patients tend to be boys and men, who are disproportionately affected by Tourette syndrome.
For Riordan, this is an important distinction to consider for the new patients she’s been seeing.
“These functional tics have different characteristics from tics in Tourette syndrome. However, it is important to recognize that kids are not faking their symptoms,” Riordan added. “Caregivers should seek the assistance of their pediatrician to differentiate the disorders – treatments are different for functional tic disorders as opposed to Tourette syndrome.”
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Last updated: August 2022 Date created: June 2008

American Psychological Association. (2022). Teens. https://www.apa.org/topics/teens/

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Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Teens, Social Media and Technology 2022
See our research on: Economy | Abortion | Russia | COVID-19
See our research on: Economy | Abortion | Russia | COVID-19
Pew Research Center conducted this study to better understand teens’ use of digital devices, social media and other online platforms. For this analysis, we surveyed 1,316 U.S. teens. The survey was conducted online by Ipsos from April 14 to May 4, 2022.
This research was reviewed and approved by an external institutional review board (IRB), Advarra, which is an independent committee of experts that specializes in helping to protect the rights of research participants.
Ipsos recruited the teens via their parents who were a part of its KnowledgePanel , a probability-based web panel recruited primarily through national, random sampling of residential addresses. The survey is weighted to be representative of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 who live with parents by age, gender, race, ethnicity, household income and other categories.
The trend data in this report comes from a Center survey on the same topic conducted from Sept. 25, 2014, to Oct. 9, 2014, and from Feb. 10, 2015, to March 16, 2015. The survey was fielded by the GfK Group on its KnowledgePanel, which was later acquired by Ipsos .
Here are the questions used for this report , along with responses, and its methodology .
The landscape of social media is ever-changing, especially among teens who often are on the leading edge of this space. A new Pew Research Center survey of American teenagers ages 13 to 17 finds TikTok has rocketed in popularity since its North American debut several years ago and now is a top social media platform for teens among the platforms covered in this survey. Some 67% of teens say they ever use TikTok, with 16% of all teens saying they use it almost constantly. Meanwhile, the share of teens who say they use Facebook, a dominant social media platform among teens in the Center’s 2014-15 survey , has plummeted from 71% then to 32% today.
YouTube tops the 2022 teen online landscape among the platforms covered in the Center’s new survey, as it is used by 95% of teens. TikTok is next on the list of platforms that were asked about in this survey (67%), followed by Instagram and Snapchat, which are both used by about six-in-ten teens. After those platforms come Facebook with 32% and smaller shares who use Twitter, Twitch, WhatsApp, Reddit and Tumblr. 1
Changes in the social media landscape since 2014-15 extend beyond TikTok’s rise and Facebook’s fall. Growing shares of teens say they are using Instagram and Snapchat since then. Conversely, Twitter and Tumblr saw declining shares of teens who report using their platforms. And two of the platforms the Center tracked in the earlier survey – Vine and Google+ – no longer exist.
There are some notable demographic differences in teens’ social media choices. For example, teen boys are more likely than teen girls to say they use YouTube, Twitch and Reddit, whereas teen girls are more likely than teen boys to use TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat. In addition, higher shares of Black and Hispanic teens report using TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and WhatsApp compared with White teens. 2
This study also explores the frequency with which teens are on each of the top five online platforms: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook. Fully 35% of teens say they are using at least one of them “almost constantly.” Teen TikTok and Snapchat users are particularly engaged with these platforms, followed by teen YouTube users in close pursuit. A quarter of teens who use Snapchat or TikTok say they use these apps almost constantly, and a fifth of teen YouTube users say the same. When looking at teens overall, 19% say they use YouTube almost constantly, 16% say this about TikTok, and 15% about Snapchat.
When reflecting on the amount of time they spend on social media generally, a majority of U.S. teens (55%) say they spend about the right amount of time on these apps and sites, while about a third of teens (36%) say they spend too much time on social media. Just 8% of teens think they spend too little time on these platforms.
Asked about the idea of giving up social media, 54% of teens say it would be at least somewhat hard to give it up, while 46% say it would be at least somewhat easy. Teen girls are more likely than teen boys to express it would be difficult to give up social media (58% vs. 49%). Conversely, a quarter of teen boys say giving up social media would be very easy, while 15% of teen girls say the same. Older teens also say they would have difficulty giving up social media. About six-in-ten teens ages 15 to 17 (58%) say giving up social media would be at least somewhat difficult to do. A smaller share of 13- to 14-year-olds (48%) think this would be difficult.
Beyond just online platforms, the new survey finds that the vast majority of teens have access to digital devices, such as smartphones (95%), desktop or laptop computers (90%) and gaming consoles (80%). And the study shows there has been an uptick in daily teen internet users, from 92% in 2014-15 to 97% today. In addition, the share of teens who say they are online almost constantly has roughly doubled since 2014-15 (46% now and 24% then).
These are some of the findings from an online survey of 1,316 teens conducted by the Pew Research Center from April 14 to May 4, 2022. More details about the findings on adoption and use of digital technologies by teens are covered below.
Since 2014-15, there has been a 22 percentage point rise in the share of teens who report having access to a smartphone (95% now and 73% then). While teens’ access to smartphones has increased over roughly the past eight years, their access to other digital technologies, such as desktop or laptop computers or gaming consoles, has remained statistically unchanged.
The survey shows there are differences in access to these digital devices for certain groups. For instance, teens ages 15 to 17 (98%) are more likely to have access to a smartphone than their 13- to 14-year-old counterparts (91%). In addition, teen boys are 21 points more likely to say they have access to gaming consoles than teen girls – a pattern that has been reported in prior Center research . 3

Access to computers and gaming consoles also differs by teens’ household income. U.S. teens living in households that make $75,000 or more annually are 12 points more likely to have access to gaming consoles and 15 points more likely to have access to a desktop or laptop computer than teens from households with incomes under $30,000. These gaps in teen computer and gaming console access are consistent with digital divides by household income the Center has observed in previous teen surveys.
While 72% of U.S. teens say they have access to a smartphone, a computer and a gaming console at home, more affluent teens are particularly likely to have access to all three devices. Fully 76% of teens that live in households that make at least $75,000 a year say they have or have access to a smartphone, a gaming console and a desktop or laptop computer, compared with smaller shares of teens from households that make less than $30,000 or teens from households making $30,000 to $74,999 a year who say they have access to all three (60% and 69% of teens, respectively).
The share of teens who say they use the internet about once a day or more has grown slightly since 2014-15. Today, 97% of teens say they use the internet daily, compared with 92% of teens in 2014-15 who said the same.
In addition, the share of teens who say they use the internet almost constantly has gone up: 46% of teens say they use the internet almost constantly, up from only about a quarter (24%) of teenagers who said the same in 2014-15.
Black and Hispanic teens stand out for being on the internet more frequently than White teens. Some 56% of Black teens and 55% of Hispanic teens say they are online almost constantly, compared with 37% of White teens. The difference between Hispanic and White teens on this measure is consistent with previous findings when it comes to frequent internet use .
In addition, older teens are more likely to be online almost constantly. Some 52% of 15- to 17-year-olds say they use the internet almost constantly, while 36% of 13- to 14-year-olds say the same. Another demographic pattern in “almost constant” internet use: 53% of urban teens report being online almost constantly, while somewhat smaller shares of suburban and rural teens say the same (44% and 43%, respectively).
Slight differences are seen among those who say they engage in “almost constant” internet use based on household income. A slightly larger share of teens from households making $30,000 to $74,999 annually report using the internet almost constantly, compared with teens from homes making at least $75,000 (51% and 43%, respectively). Teens who live in households making under $30,000 do not significantly differ from either group.
This survey asked whether U.S. teens use 10 specific online platforms: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, WhatsApp, Reddit and Tumblr.
YouTube stands out as the most common online platform teens use out of the platforms measured, with 95% saying they ever use this site or app. Majorities also say the
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