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Well actually I think people should first try getting off social media - and not just that - getting off Internet.

by Void_ 9y ago

kobeya 9y ago
If you have ADHD it’s not so simple. When I’m off my pills — which is to say every day of my life before I was diagnosed — I don’t really make conscious decisions about such things. I open my computer to work and find myself on Twitter or Facebook or HN or whatever 20min later without thinking about it. I mean that literally with no hyperbole. ADHD manifests from an under developed or under stimulated prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for such task prioritization and decision making. Without stimulants I’m not really making conscious decisions about most things. Much like how you’ve probably driven your commute sometimes and arrived without really much memory of how you got there (“driving on autopilot”). That’s every moment of every day in the most extreme ADHD case (it’s a spectrum of course and you should seek treatment if you think you’re anywhere on it, even if the above sounds more extreme than you).
- seedie 9y ago
  Were there things on the other hand that you could focus on very well, were you dived in deeply? Or did your autopilot drive you away from everything you were focused on after a while? thanks for sharing your experience
- pasta 9y ago
  I absolutely don't want to be rude, but the 'inventor' of ADHD (Eisenberg), when he died, said that ADHD is a pharmaceutical dease and the cause is social. Wrong food, bad sleeping habits, wrong teaching methods all influence the way we get stimulated. Studies agree with this. I am not saying you don't have a problem, because I also feel like someone who has ADHD and feel a lot like the author of the article. But I also think that, just like the author, you can change your 'ADHD' by changing your behaviour. Again: I dont want to put anyone down that is labelled with ADHD, but I think this culture is on it's way to create an ADHDer of everyone.
  - hvidgaard 9y ago
    > Wrong food, bad sleeping habits, wrong teaching methods all influence the way we get stimulated. Studies agree with this. This part is severely misunderstood. If I don't sleep, eat, and exercise reasonably I completely lose focus. Taking adderall will help, but it treating the symptom rather than the cause. This looks like ADHD, but isn't. If my children lack sleep and are overburden (thanks modern school system), it looks like ADHD, but it isn't. Now, some people, children and adults, do have ADHD no matter how well they sleep, meditate, eat, and exercise. With our current understanding, their best bet is medication. But for the vast majority, they simply need to slow down.
  - azag0 9y ago
    It is very likely to be a combination of innate predisposition and behavioral effects. Like almost all diseases that are not caused by external bodies, or extremely hereditary. So ADHD is not really a condition, rather, it is an axis on which you can fit somewhere. In extreme cases, I can imagine it's very hard to manage without pills. In most cases, one can probably work through it without pills.
  - donmatito 9y ago
    You may both be right. There is an increasing amount of scientific evidence that screens (TV in particular) and junk food (sugar and saturated fat in particular) are severely impairing brain development in children, leading among other issues to difficulty to focus and ADHD. So yes, keeping children off screens as much as possible (+ healthy food + sport) looks like a good advice. However, when you have this condition as an adult... well, there is some level of plasticity in the brain, but it looks harder than just "change your behavior", it may be required to also treat the symptoms.
  - amigoingtodie 9y ago
    The same argument can be made about user's of cholesterol and blood pressure medicine, as well. Exercise more, eat 'better'.
  - kobeya 9y ago
    FMRI Brain scans tell a different story. If Dr. Eisenberg really believed that in the end, he was wrong.
- mljoe 9y ago
  I don't understand how what you described is ADHD and not average human behavior. If people were not easily distracted by Twitter and Facebook, they wouldn't have a functioning business. There are entire business models that rely on the truism that a huge fraction of the population will procrastinate on a trivial task that will clearly and unambiguously benefit them. Mail in rebates for instance. When does this become ADHD?
jlebrech 9y ago
I think this is why we need to get back to using books for our resources, looking on the internet is too distracting.
- cableshaft 9y ago
  The books still exist. I still use books as a crash course or refresher from time to time. And I've gotten back into reading more on my Kindle or phone while walking my dog in the mornings.
dookahku 9y ago
This is anti-advice. This is like telling depressed people to be happy or victims of violence with PTSD to 'grow a pair' and 'snap out of it'. This is the kind of simplistic, unhelpful, shaming advice that keeps mental illness taboo.
- lkozma 9y ago
  I think you misrepresent the parent post. Suppose you had insomnia. Wouldn't it be a fair suggestion to cut back on coffee and other stimulants first, before trying sleeping pills?
  - unfamiliar 9y ago
    I think the point is that by the nature of ADHD telling people to "get off the internet" as a solution to the problem would be more akin to telling the insomniac "just stop staying awake all the time!"
    - beagle3 9y ago
      Not really. Leaving a phone at home and taking a notebook or book with you while sitting outside is not like "stop staying awake". It will, in fact, get you off the Internet and is unlikely to result in withdrawal symptoms for most people. Unlike "stop staying awake" which is not actionable. A book might not be a good suggestion for everyone, and finding the right "off internet thinking environment" is not easy for some, but it's doable for most.
      - eeZah7Ux 9y ago
        > Unlike "stop staying awake" which is not actionable. That's the problem: you think "stop staying awake" is not actionable, while "leave your phone at home" is actionable for a person with ADHD. Again, this is not different than saying "just be happy" to a depressed person. To that person, in that moment, "stop wasting time on the internet" is not actionable just as much, otherwise it would not be a problem in the first place.
nickjj 9y ago
I wrote about this last year. I called it the "social loop of death": https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/schedules-arent-a-constraint-on-life-they-let-you-live-it https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/schedules-arent-a-constraint-... It's super distracting, but you can easily break out of it with being accountable for your time. Nowadays I've found a healthy balance and am more productive / happy / successful than ever. A lot of it had to due with following these 3 things too: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-overcome-procrastination-with-a-3-pronged-attack https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-overcome-procrastinati....

Well actually I think people should first try getting off social media - and not just that - getting off Internet.

by Void_ 9y ago

Well actually I think people should first try getting off social media - and not just that - getting off Internet.

If you have ADHD it’s not so simple. When I’m off my pills — which is to say every day of my life before I was diagnosed — I don’t really make conscious decisions about such things. I open my computer to work and find myself on Twitter or Facebook or HN or whatever 20min later without thinking about it. I mean that literally with no hyperbole. ADHD manifests from an under developed or under stimulated prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for such task prioritization and decision making. Without stimulants I’m not really making conscious decisions about most things. Much like how you’ve probably driven your commute sometimes and arrived without really much memory of how you got there (“driving on autopilot”). That’s every moment of every day in the most extreme ADHD case (it’s a spectrum of course and you should seek treatment if you think you’re anywhere on it, even if the above sounds more extreme than you).

seedie 9y ago
Were there things on the other hand that you could focus on very well, were you dived in deeply? Or did your autopilot drive you away from everything you were focused on after a while? thanks for sharing your experience
pasta 9y ago
I absolutely don't want to be rude, but the 'inventor' of ADHD (Eisenberg), when he died, said that ADHD is a pharmaceutical dease and the cause is social. Wrong food, bad sleeping habits, wrong teaching methods all influence the way we get stimulated. Studies agree with this. I am not saying you don't have a problem, because I also feel like someone who has ADHD and feel a lot like the author of the article. But I also think that, just like the author, you can change your 'ADHD' by changing your behaviour. Again: I dont want to put anyone down that is labelled with ADHD, but I think this culture is on it's way to create an ADHDer of everyone.
- hvidgaard 9y ago
  > Wrong food, bad sleeping habits, wrong teaching methods all influence the way we get stimulated. Studies agree with this. This part is severely misunderstood. If I don't sleep, eat, and exercise reasonably I completely lose focus. Taking adderall will help, but it treating the symptom rather than the cause. This looks like ADHD, but isn't. If my children lack sleep and are overburden (thanks modern school system), it looks like ADHD, but it isn't. Now, some people, children and adults, do have ADHD no matter how well they sleep, meditate, eat, and exercise. With our current understanding, their best bet is medication. But for the vast majority, they simply need to slow down.
- azag0 9y ago
  It is very likely to be a combination of innate predisposition and behavioral effects. Like almost all diseases that are not caused by external bodies, or extremely hereditary. So ADHD is not really a condition, rather, it is an axis on which you can fit somewhere. In extreme cases, I can imagine it's very hard to manage without pills. In most cases, one can probably work through it without pills.
- donmatito 9y ago
  You may both be right. There is an increasing amount of scientific evidence that screens (TV in particular) and junk food (sugar and saturated fat in particular) are severely impairing brain development in children, leading among other issues to difficulty to focus and ADHD. So yes, keeping children off screens as much as possible (+ healthy food + sport) looks like a good advice. However, when you have this condition as an adult... well, there is some level of plasticity in the brain, but it looks harder than just "change your behavior", it may be required to also treat the symptoms.
- amigoingtodie 9y ago
  The same argument can be made about user's of cholesterol and blood pressure medicine, as well. Exercise more, eat 'better'.
- kobeya 9y ago
  FMRI Brain scans tell a different story. If Dr. Eisenberg really believed that in the end, he was wrong.
mljoe 9y ago
I don't understand how what you described is ADHD and not average human behavior. If people were not easily distracted by Twitter and Facebook, they wouldn't have a functioning business. There are entire business models that rely on the truism that a huge fraction of the population will procrastinate on a trivial task that will clearly and unambiguously benefit them. Mail in rebates for instance. When does this become ADHD?

jlebrech 9y ago

I think this is why we need to get back to using books for our resources, looking on the internet is too distracting.

cableshaft 9y ago
The books still exist. I still use books as a crash course or refresher from time to time. And I've gotten back into reading more on my Kindle or phone while walking my dog in the mornings.

dookahku 9y ago

This is anti-advice. This is like telling depressed people to be happy or victims of violence with PTSD to 'grow a pair' and 'snap out of it'. This is the kind of simplistic, unhelpful, shaming advice that keeps mental illness taboo.

lkozma 9y ago
I think you misrepresent the parent post. Suppose you had insomnia. Wouldn't it be a fair suggestion to cut back on coffee and other stimulants first, before trying sleeping pills?
- unfamiliar 9y ago
  I think the point is that by the nature of ADHD telling people to "get off the internet" as a solution to the problem would be more akin to telling the insomniac "just stop staying awake all the time!"
  - beagle3 9y ago
    Not really. Leaving a phone at home and taking a notebook or book with you while sitting outside is not like "stop staying awake". It will, in fact, get you off the Internet and is unlikely to result in withdrawal symptoms for most people. Unlike "stop staying awake" which is not actionable. A book might not be a good suggestion for everyone, and finding the right "off internet thinking environment" is not easy for some, but it's doable for most.
    - eeZah7Ux 9y ago
      > Unlike "stop staying awake" which is not actionable. That's the problem: you think "stop staying awake" is not actionable, while "leave your phone at home" is actionable for a person with ADHD. Again, this is not different than saying "just be happy" to a depressed person. To that person, in that moment, "stop wasting time on the internet" is not actionable just as much, otherwise it would not be a problem in the first place.

nickjj 9y ago

I wrote about this last year. I called it the "social loop of death": https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/schedules-arent-a-constraint-on-life-they-let-you-live-it https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/schedules-arent-a-constraint-... It's super distracting, but you can easily break out of it with being accountable for your time. Nowadays I've found a healthy balance and am more productive / happy / successful than ever. A lot of it had to due with following these 3 things too: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-overcome-procrastination-with-a-3-pronged-attack https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-overcome-procrastinati....