Believing is Seeing

Writer / Director
Producer: Nikhil Madhan
DP: Pepe De Hoyos

Made as part of the prestigious Loading Docs series 2022 and selected for Short of the Week.

A mysterious outbreak of tic disorders among young people leads Dr Robert Bartholomew to question whether social media is making us sick.

Doctors have recently identified a concerning trend among young people: tic disorders potentially spread via TikTok videos. For sociologist Dr Robert Bartholomew, an expert in mass psychogenic illness, the trend isn’t surprising, but the potential consequences are alarming. Could the global scope of social media mean we are on the precipice of the world’s largest outbreak of psychogenic illness?