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

The second sentence both says the same thing twice and actually doesn't make any sense when you parse it.

> Since spread via social media is no longer restricted to specific locations such as local communities or school environments, spread via social media is no longer restricted to specific locations such as schools or towns.

The sequence "spread via social media is no longer restricted to specific locations" appears in exactly that sequence twice in that sentence. If you cut the redundancy down to "spread via social media is no longer restricted to specific locations", that doesn't make sense either since social media was never restricted to specific locations.

I'm not saying it's definitely written entirely by GPT, but mindlessly repeating sequences is very GPT-like behavior. Maybe academics are using GPT to pad their word count? Or maybe the authors and their editors just need more coffee?

It reminds me of the old saying “Monkey see .. Monkey do”.

An over simplification perhaps but there is no question we “mimic” all the time.

This passage from the abstract:

> Moreover, they can be viewed as the 21st century expression of a culture-bound stress reaction of our post-modern society emphasizing the uniqueness of individuals and valuing their alleged exceptionality, thus promoting attention-seeking behaviours and aggravating the permanent identity crisis of modern man.

is rather peculiar. I didn't expect that this is how neurologists and neuroscientists would speak these days. "Our postmodern society", "permanent identity crisis of the modern man" - these sentiments sound like they've been transplanted from a humanities paper.

These illnesses appear to be very real, even if sociogenetic in origin.

Someone researching the same thing has this to say

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/nov/16/the-unknown-is...

>Olvera’s research has not gone down well in some quarters. “I’m frustrated,” she says. “I’ve tried to stop reading a lot of what is written out there.” She’s received “lots” of angry emails. “My colleagues have had a positive response to my research,” she says, “but I don’t know if it’s been perceived appropriately by the public. The last thing I would want is for my patients to walk away from this thinking that their disorder is fake or not worthwhile.”

>Much of the controversy arises from the misapprehension that doctors are accusing young people of faking Tourette’s for attention, or arguing that TikTok is giving people Tourette’s. Neither claim is true. “What the media has boiled it down to,” says Olvera, “is that if it’s not Tourette syndrome, it’s fake. But just because it’s not Tourette syndrome doesn’t mean it’s fake. This is a real condition. Even though it’s not typical Tourette’s, it’s very disruptive and stressful.”

Recently read the story of a detransitioner and the statistic that about a third falls of the radar (and due missing their hormones, almost certainly are unhappy about the treatment). Social media are implicated in the spread of these ideas (all ideas), and the detransitioner pleaded for better info from professionals and an end to doctor neutrality for underage trans people.

Changed my mind a bit.