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I am helping a family member recently diagnosed with ADHD during the pandemic. I looked up this google trend and my jaw dropped. Clearly the world has yet to co

I am helping a family member recently diagnosed with ADHD during the pandemic. I looked up this google trend and my jaw dropped. Clearly the world has yet to come to terms with the social, emotional and psychological effects of this pandemic. If anyone here knows anything about what's causing the rise in adhd specifically, I'd love to hear about it: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=adhd https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...

elcritch 5y ago
You don't really "get" ADHD as it's generally lifelong. Symptoms can wax and wane over time though and can be exacerbated. Combine that with diagnosis getting better, especially for women and non-hyperactive subtypes.
- pcarolan 5y ago
  Right, so why did the trend explode during the pandemic?
  - elcritch 5y ago
    It’s possible there was a rise of incorrect diagnosis where lockdown stresses gave rise to ADHD-like symptoms. Alternatively more people WFH and not having other distractions could’ve led more people to figure out their existing ADHD. Likely more people also sought mental health care given the stressors of lockdowns and media coverage of COVID. Just hypotheses.
    - phil21 5y ago
      Drug seekers as well for performance enhancers like adderall or ritalin. If you're somewhere on the spectrum it's pretty trivial to present ADHD with some practice to a clinician who doesn't care much, especially if remote. I heard of a couple instances of this throughout my extended social network - largely from people who found it very hard to focus at home and get work done (they required work/home separation for mental health), but certainly did not have ADHD.
superfrank 5y ago
I don't have an answer or even a guess really, but I want to bring up that "autism" shows a strikingly similar trend in google searches and searches for "depression" kind of go down starting at the same time.
Apocryphon 5y ago
Search terms for ADHD doesn't necessarily mean that ADHD prevalence is increasing. ADHD awareness is increasing, which can be anecdotally observed everywhere from HN to TikTok.
- pcarolan 5y ago
  I also wonder how much ADHD disinformation is driving this: https://www.psypost.org/2022/03/misleading-videos-about-adhd-are-being-widely-disseminated-on-tiktok-study-finds-62705 https://www.psypost.org/2022/03/misleading-videos-about-adhd...

elcritch 5y ago

You don't really "get" ADHD as it's generally lifelong. Symptoms can wax and wane over time though and can be exacerbated. Combine that with diagnosis getting better, especially for women and non-hyperactive subtypes.

pcarolan 5y ago
Right, so why did the trend explode during the pandemic?
- elcritch 5y ago
  It’s possible there was a rise of incorrect diagnosis where lockdown stresses gave rise to ADHD-like symptoms. Alternatively more people WFH and not having other distractions could’ve led more people to figure out their existing ADHD. Likely more people also sought mental health care given the stressors of lockdowns and media coverage of COVID. Just hypotheses.
  - phil21 5y ago
    Drug seekers as well for performance enhancers like adderall or ritalin. If you're somewhere on the spectrum it's pretty trivial to present ADHD with some practice to a clinician who doesn't care much, especially if remote. I heard of a couple instances of this throughout my extended social network - largely from people who found it very hard to focus at home and get work done (they required work/home separation for mental health), but certainly did not have ADHD.

superfrank 5y ago

I don't have an answer or even a guess really, but I want to bring up that "autism" shows a strikingly similar trend in google searches and searches for "depression" kind of go down starting at the same time.

Apocryphon 5y ago

Search terms for ADHD doesn't necessarily mean that ADHD prevalence is increasing. ADHD awareness is increasing, which can be anecdotally observed everywhere from HN to TikTok.

pcarolan 5y ago
I also wonder how much ADHD disinformation is driving this: https://www.psypost.org/2022/03/misleading-videos-about-adhd-are-being-widely-disseminated-on-tiktok-study-finds-62705 https://www.psypost.org/2022/03/misleading-videos-about-adhd...