We Become What We Behold

TikTok Tics

What it is: This week, the Wall Street Journal (paywall) reported that doctors across the world have seen a significant increase of teen girls with tics in their offices over the last year. Some believe that “Tourette syndrome influencers” on TikTok may help explain why.

Why it's not just a fringe theory: In late July, a team of Chicago-based doctors published a paper exploring the connection called “TikTok Tics: A Pandemic Within a Pandemic.” While it might seem absurd to suggest that watching videos of someone with a medical condition could lead to viewers actually developing that condition, human beings have always been social creatures, picking up on ways of speaking and being from those we interface with most.

Obviously we can’t say how many of these new tics are truly novel involuntary reflexes as opposed to practiced imitations; but either way, this may just be one more (admittedly niche) example of the poet William Blake’s insistence: “We become what we behold.”

In 1 John 3:2, the Apostle of Love writes, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” This verse presupposes that there’s a principle at work in our world, that what we are exposed to shapes and determines who we become. Seeing Christ—in all his horizon-expanding, eternal glory—will change us to be more like him; and along the way, whatever else we see has the power to change us, too.

That change may not look exactly like what moralists fear, and we can acknowledge that different people are affected in different ways by different things. As of Thursday afternoon, for example, #tourettes and #tourettesyndrome videos on TikTok had more than 6 billion views combined, while the number of new cases of involuntary tics remained relatively small; not everyone is equally influenced by Tourette influencers.

Still, it’s a general truth that we were not made to be unaffected, autonomous beings. There are neurons in our brains that God designed to “mirror” and respond to the behaviors of whoever/whatever we’re exposed to. In the best of cases, features like these help us learn from mentors and adapt in social circumstances. But this same tendency is also why Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’”

In an article for The Atlantic (language), David Brooks writes about what he calls “the theory of maximum taste,” saying, “If you spend a lot of time with genius, your mind will end up bigger and broader than if you spend your time only with run-of-the-mill stuff. The theory of maximum taste says that each person’s mind is defined by its upper limit—the best that it habitually consumes and is capable of consuming.” So if this general principle holds true—that we will be shaped in some sense by what we expose ourselves to—what would it look like to make more intentional decisions about that?

Here are some questions we hope might spark conversation with teens:

Can you think of anyone (friends, musicians, directors, etc.) that you would consider a genius?
Can you think of any specific songs, movies, or conversations that have shaped the way you think about life?
Is it possible to know how something will affect us before it affects us?

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