The first article How Teens Recovered From The ‘TikTok Tics’, a New York Times article written by Azeen Ghorayshi, details the phenomenon of teenagers (most often women) developing mysterious symptoms due to stress and watching TikTok featuring other teens discussing/showing their health issues. Looking back at the past, the article highlights the trend of people suddenly developing and spreading symptoms like tremor, blindness and seizure that have no discernible cause. And in the past few years, this phenomenon was shown to be able to happen through social media sites, specifically TikTok. The article then mentions a study by the University of Calgary whose results show that 80% of the teens were diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder, ~33% of the teens reported that they had a traumatic experience prior to being in the result. After that a similarity between the current studies and the past is pointed out:that being that most of the people who suffer from this kind of “hysteria” seem to be women, andin the modern times this expanded to include transgender and non-binary people. And as for how this “hysteria” happens exactly, Dr. Isabel Heyman (a child psychiatrist), expressed their curiosity saying, “ We all recognize that the mind can make the body do things, But when the symptoms are quite bizarre and quite intense — like a seizure, or not being able to walk, or ticlike movements — we think, ‘How on earth can the brain generate symptoms like this?” Throughout the article they talk about Aidan, a non-binary teen who developed tics during the pandemic lockdown after watching other teens on the site talk about their mental health issues. They serve as the primary subject regarding the condition, with the article going through the trauma, symptoms and their experience with managing her tics. After reading this first article, I believe that this article is really credible. Firstly, from my own personal experience and research,I also noticed that on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram that the people who talked the most/ displayed their mental health issues the most were women and/or part of the LGBTQ+ community. Also, I remember watching a video on Youtube that talked about mass hysteria throughout history, and an example that was brought up was an incident in which a whole convent of nuns began to meow like cats spontaneously. Overall, this article gives me a good idea of the scope of what I already knew.
The second article Trash or Recycling? Why Plastic Keeps Us Guessing, a New YorkTimes article written by Winston Choi-Schagrin and Hiroko Tabuchi and illustrated by Rinee Shah, discusses the reasons why the system for recycling plastic isn’t as effective as it could be. The first reason cited is that rules are confusing regarding which plastics can be recycled and how they should be separated for pickup. Due to this, according to the UNEP, around 80% of all plastics produced end up in landfills while about 9% of all plastics ever actually get recycled. As Patrick Krieger, VP of sustainability at the Plastics Industry Association, said that, “We don’t recycle enough plastic, plain and simple … there is so much more we need to do …the industry is constantly innovating to increase the recyclability of the products we make and including more recycled content at a record pace.” The second reason cited is that there is no standardized way among different towns as to how to recycle plastic, with some towns not even recycling at all. The third reason cited is that more plastic products are made everyday, with most of those products meant to be used once. The article compared it to a leak in the tub (recycling) while the faucet is still running (plastic production). In order to combat this, several politicians proposed bans on single-use plastic products, but these bills failed due to pressure from industries that saw boosted sales figures from the production of single-use products. Finally, the article suggest several ways to improve plastic recycling:
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Shift more responsibility to companies.
- Give recycling symbols more concise meanings.
- Regulate the production and use of single-use plastics.
- Gain a better understanding of which plastics can be recycled on an individual level.
After reading this second article, I better understand why we aren’t making much progress regarding recycling despite our collective desire to reduce the amount of plastic pollution in the world.
