alt Hacker NewsDo you think the majority of those people are lying or do you think it's possible that our pursuit of algorithmic consumption is actually rewiring our neural pathways into something that looks/behaves more like ADHD?
Personally, I'm on the fence. I suspect that I've always had a bit of that, but anecdotally, it does seem to have gotten worse in the past decade, but perhaps it's just a symptom of old age (31 hehehe).
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I have what you would call metric shittons of ADHD. Medically diagnosed. Was kicked outta university for failing grades and all. Pills saved me. If you think you have it, the best thing you can do for yourself is at least get a diagnosis done. In b4 people come in and chime it can be faked. Yes the symptoms can be faked. But why would you if you really want to know what is wrong with you if any? (Hoping you aren't a TikTok content creator lurking here)
Probably a bit of both, it's trendy do have a quirk, and modern life fucks up your attention span. Everyone wants to put a label on everything, remember when facebook had a dropdown of like 60+ genders? I also know people who talk about "being on the spectrum" all the time, at first I thought it was a meme, but they genuinely believe they're autistic because they're #notliketheothers. At the end of the day everything is a spectrum and nobody is normal, I'm not sure it's healthy to want to put a label on everything or medicate to fall back on the baseline.
> Do you think the majority of those people are lying
I don’t think they’re lying, but it is very clear that ADHD has entered the common vernacular and is now used as a generic term like OCD.
People will say “I’m OCD about…” as a way of saying they like to be organized or that they care about some detail.
Now it’s common to say “My ADHD made me…” to refer to getting distracted or following an impulse.
> or do you think it's possible that our pursuit of algorithmic consumption is actually rewiring our neural pathways into something that looks/behaves more like ADHD?
Focus is, and always has been, something that can be developed through practice. Ability to focus starts to decrease when you don’t practice it much.
The talk about “rewiring the brain” and blaming algorithms is getting too abstract, in my opinion. You’re just developing bad habits and not investing time and energy into maintaining the good habits.
If you choose to delete those apps from your phone or even just use your phone’s time limit features today, you could start reducing time spent on the bad habits. If you find something to replace it with like reading a book (ideally physical book to avoid distractions) or even just going outside for a 10 minute walk with your phone at home, I guarantee you’ll find that what you see as an adult-onset “ADHD” will start to diminish and you will begin returning to the focus you remember a decade ago.
Or you could continue scrolling phones and distractions, which will probably continue the decline.
This is a good place to note that a lot of people think getting a prescription will fix the problem, but a very common anecdote in these situations is that the stimulant without a concomitant habit change just made them hyperfocus on their distractions or even go deeper into more obsessive focus on distractions. Building the better habits is a prerequisite and you can’t shortcut out of it.