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I am diagnosed with ADHD and despite feeling like I’ve learned a lot about my condition I found ideas in this article new and stimulating. The idea of “patholog

I am diagnosed with ADHD and despite feeling like I’ve learned a lot about my condition I found ideas in this article new and stimulating. The idea of “pathologized” inattention makes complete sense on paper—of course if you sell attention-draining digital media you would want to divert attention (heh) from any harms your business is causing. So I grant this is definitely happening, but it begs the question of why in this environment 100% of people don’t suffer from ADHD? One reasonable answer, which I cannot prove beyond saying it matches my anecdotal experience, is that the ADHD problem is part nurture (information overload from a changing media environment that affects everyone) but also part nature (every brain is naturally a little bit different). I have always had inattention—just ask my parents and childhood teachers. It had nothing to do with the Internet. No question the internet has posed extra challenges to my naturally weaker attention, in a similar way to how the invention of skyscrapers posed a challenge to people in wheelchairs. This analogy fails with the invention of elevators, for which the ADHD sufferer has no equivalent accommodation in our modern media world. I wish I could invite non-ADHD-havers into my brain for a day to show them what it’s really like. Even now, as an adult with robust coping strategies, inattention afflicts me in all corners of my life. I struggle with the unexpected if it hits me when I’m focused on something, which leads to problems making friends or navigating stimulating social environments. I have trouble listening to friends or dates in busy bars or cafes, which is a related but distinct problem. When I’m trying to get into a flow at work I frequently get random, highly salient impulses to do other things that are important but aren’t the thing I need to do at that moment. Crucially I resist these urges, but they make achieving the flow I crave—and the success of my work—more difficult. Even in current year, I think a lot of people (and certainly a lot of doctors!) don’t believe that any of this is real, and all I want from life is to take speed and scroll Reddit and Twitter all night. Let me assure you that this is not the case. If anything, the people I know IRL who have ADHD are among the most driven people out there. They almost have to be, because the minute they drop their guard their dreams start slipping away.

throwamon 4y ago
> begs the question doesn't mean what you think it means https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
- mydogcanpurr 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question#Vernacular https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question#Vernacula...
  - carlmr 4y ago
    The beauty of language, as soon as many people believe it means something, that is what it means now.
    - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
      I think the common usage for the original begging the question would probably be tautological reasoning nowadays.
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        Both uses of “begging the question” are common, and since the fallacy sense is invariably intransitive and the “raising the question” sense transitive (specifying the question as a direct object), they aren’t even ambiguous. As a bonus, the transitive sense also makes a convenient rationalization of the fallacy sense (which on its own is a iffy translation into non-current English of the Latin name of the fallacy), which can be seen as (despite very different etymology) being equivalent to the transitive sense with “what is the justification of the premise being discussed?” as the implicit object. The pedantry that approves only the intransitive usage and rejects the transitive usage is silly on several levels.
        bloak 4y ago
        Perhaps, but deliberately using the expression incorrectly is even sillier. All you're going to do is annoy people or make them think you're ignorant. What's the point in that? What's wrong with saying "raise the question" or "prompt the question" instead, which is also more logical? What is the point of taking a pompous old-fashioned expression and using it incorrectly? I'm not opposed to linguistic innovation if it makes the language more elegant or more expressive, but misuse of "beg the question" is just ugly and cringe-inducing.
colechristensen 4y ago
ADHD isn't necessarily a pathology. I.e. arguably there is nothing "wrong" with most people with that diagnoses, it is simply an adaptation where there was an evolutionarily stable balance of temperaments where some nontrivial ratio of people are more like seekers and wanderers and not satisfied with buckling down and doing the same stuff repeatedly. ADHD is also at least in some people, a developmental problem sort of like a muscle imbalance where people learn to do an action with a set of muscles and neglect whole muscle groups and end up kind of able to do everything but with drawbacks because they weren't trained properly. After a concussion and extensive testing, I discovered the latter about myself. There are a lot of things I'm quite good at with neurological tests and one working memory test that I'm just terrible at. So much started making sense when I discovered this about my whole life. And maybe my brain is just weird but what I actually think is it's something that just never got trained because I got good at other things early which compensated. Now the struggle is finding professionals interested in helping instead of telling me everything will be better with an SSRI and talk about my feelings. I'm sure that I'm still a certain kind of person, but a lot of my "symptoms" could actually be trained away if properly measured and exercised.
- 0xRolex 4y ago
  If you want to learn more about ADHD there's a intresting book about it called "ADHD doesn't exist" which relates over 40 years in the matter by a specialist of the field. The author explains that ADHD is too often treated as the problem itself when it's "just" symptoms. He also takes time to explain every source he's observed to cause there symptoms, how he looks for them with daily patients and what to do/how to deal with these problems properly. I learnt a lot about myself and what could realy be the cause of my ADHD reading it.
annie_muss 4y ago
"Wanting to invite someone into my brain for the day" really resonates with me. There is still a stereotype of ADHD as the hyperactive child: running around, yelling, disrupting others. When your ADHD presents as absentmindedness, lack of attention and staying on task, daydreaming and so on it is much easier for it to go unnoticed. I have plenty of ADHD symptoms that will be noticed by those around me. Forgetfulness, distractibility, poor working memory but it's really just the tip of the iceberg.

throwamon 4y ago

> begs the question doesn't mean what you think it means https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

mydogcanpurr 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question#Vernacular https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question#Vernacula...
- carlmr 4y ago
  The beauty of language, as soon as many people believe it means something, that is what it means now.
  - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
    I think the common usage for the original begging the question would probably be tautological reasoning nowadays.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      Both uses of “begging the question” are common, and since the fallacy sense is invariably intransitive and the “raising the question” sense transitive (specifying the question as a direct object), they aren’t even ambiguous. As a bonus, the transitive sense also makes a convenient rationalization of the fallacy sense (which on its own is a iffy translation into non-current English of the Latin name of the fallacy), which can be seen as (despite very different etymology) being equivalent to the transitive sense with “what is the justification of the premise being discussed?” as the implicit object. The pedantry that approves only the intransitive usage and rejects the transitive usage is silly on several levels.
      - bloak 4y ago
        Perhaps, but deliberately using the expression incorrectly is even sillier. All you're going to do is annoy people or make them think you're ignorant. What's the point in that? What's wrong with saying "raise the question" or "prompt the question" instead, which is also more logical? What is the point of taking a pompous old-fashioned expression and using it incorrectly? I'm not opposed to linguistic innovation if it makes the language more elegant or more expressive, but misuse of "beg the question" is just ugly and cringe-inducing.

colechristensen 4y ago

ADHD isn't necessarily a pathology. I.e. arguably there is nothing "wrong" with most people with that diagnoses, it is simply an adaptation where there was an evolutionarily stable balance of temperaments where some nontrivial ratio of people are more like seekers and wanderers and not satisfied with buckling down and doing the same stuff repeatedly. ADHD is also at least in some people, a developmental problem sort of like a muscle imbalance where people learn to do an action with a set of muscles and neglect whole muscle groups and end up kind of able to do everything but with drawbacks because they weren't trained properly. After a concussion and extensive testing, I discovered the latter about myself. There are a lot of things I'm quite good at with neurological tests and one working memory test that I'm just terrible at. So much started making sense when I discovered this about my whole life. And maybe my brain is just weird but what I actually think is it's something that just never got trained because I got good at other things early which compensated. Now the struggle is finding professionals interested in helping instead of telling me everything will be better with an SSRI and talk about my feelings. I'm sure that I'm still a certain kind of person, but a lot of my "symptoms" could actually be trained away if properly measured and exercised.

0xRolex 4y ago
If you want to learn more about ADHD there's a intresting book about it called "ADHD doesn't exist" which relates over 40 years in the matter by a specialist of the field. The author explains that ADHD is too often treated as the problem itself when it's "just" symptoms. He also takes time to explain every source he's observed to cause there symptoms, how he looks for them with daily patients and what to do/how to deal with these problems properly. I learnt a lot about myself and what could realy be the cause of my ADHD reading it.

annie_muss 4y ago

"Wanting to invite someone into my brain for the day" really resonates with me. There is still a stereotype of ADHD as the hyperactive child: running around, yelling, disrupting others. When your ADHD presents as absentmindedness, lack of attention and staying on task, daydreaming and so on it is much easier for it to go unnoticed. I have plenty of ADHD symptoms that will be noticed by those around me. Forgetfulness, distractibility, poor working memory but it's really just the tip of the iceberg.