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benny  1yr ago (academic.oup.com)   Edited 1yr ago   2614 thread views

Stop that! It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

academic.oup.com

In Germany, the current outbreak of mass social media-induced illness is initiated by a ‘virtual’ index case, who is the second most successful YouTube creator in Germany and enjoys enormous popularity among young people. Affected teenagers present with similar or identical functional ‘Tourette-like’ behaviours, which can be clearly differentiated from tics in Tourette syndrome.

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patients often reported to be unable to perform unpleasant tasks because of their symptoms resulting in release from obligations at school and home, while symptoms temporarily completely disappear while conducting favourite activities.

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I wrote a comment for the general CW thread, but noticed this dedicated thread here, so I'll just post it here:

This little bit of news made it through my feeds recently:

We report the first outbreak of a new type of mass sociogenic illness that in contrast to all previously reported episodes is spread solely via social media.

A mass sociogenic illness is later defined as "a constellation of symptoms suggestive of organic illness, but without an identifiable cause, that occurs between two or more people who share beliefs related to those symptoms"

The symptoms of this illness present like those of Tourette syndrome:

(...) patients presented with nearly identical movements and vocalizations that not only resemble Jan Zimmermann’s symptoms, but are in part exactly the same, such as shouting the German words Pommes (English: potatoes), Bombe (English: bomb), Heil Hitler, Du bist häßlich (English: you are ugly) and Fliegende Haie (English: flying sharks) as well as bizarre and complex behaviours such as throwing pens at school and dishes at home, and crushing eggs in the kitchen.

However, when diagnosed by an experienced professional, it turns out that these symptoms are only a shallow mimicry of Tourette syndrome:

(...) Third, patients often reported to be unable to perform unpleasant tasks because of their symptoms resulting in release from obligations at school and home, while symptoms temporarily completely disappear while conducting favourite activities. Fourth, in some patients, a rapid and complete remission occurred after exclusion of the diagnosis of Tourette syndrome.

So, in other words, what we're seeing is a memetic infection, aka infohazard.

What other memetic infections are floating around us? It would be too easy to point to grand political or religious ideas. But what about something smaller? Could things like "black pill", "gender dysphoria", "trad-life", "degrowth" be examples of sociogenic illness?

Think about it: faux-Tourette syndrome is an aesthetic that plays out as a social behavior. The things I listed above are often played out as aesthetic-based social behaviors--anecdotally, I know of few people with similar "lifestyle" beliefs that adhere to them as a result of deep self-reflection and research.

Looking toward the future, what other sociogenic illnesses can we expect given that social media is worming its way deeper and deeper into society?

Could things like "black pill", "gender dysphoria", "trad-life", "degrowth" be examples of sociogenic illness?

I think this and other online things could be and it took something like this to awaken people to the possibility. Also the flat earth movement, alien abductions (this one predates the internet a bit), "incels", etc.

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