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Could America’s Adderall shortage have harmed its productivity?
- paulpauper 3y agoI wonder also how much obesity plays a role in this. Food also acts as a stimulant. It's possible people are eating more to be more productive, to meet the demands of work. All companies seem to have cafeterias full of free sugary snacks and sugary drinks for employees.
- striking 3y agoI think you're missing the forest for the trees. The free food and snacks provide a quick and easy source of calories, which enables employees to quickly and reliably replenish their energy stores on site. I'm sure less obese nations have companies with cafeterias of their own for the same reason.
- paulpauper 3y agoWhat is the forest and what is the trees? The rest of the world getting obese too. There is strong evidence snacking leads to obesity and or a major contributor to it. An extra thousand calories per day from snacks adds up.
- nonrepeating 3y agoThis is a really interesting point, thanks for saying this. I absolutely agree with you. Do you happen to have sources for this? I can do my own research but I thought I’d ask in case you already are aware of some.
- idlewords 3y agoThe free snacks are a phenomenon almost unique to tech companies. Normal jobs have a vending machine in the break room.
- tptacek 3y agoIt might be common in finance too, for whatever that's worth.
- BMc2020 3y ago[flagged]
- striking 3y agoDo you have any specific reason to bring this up, or is this as plain an ad hominem as it seems?
- BMc2020 3y agoThanks for the downvote. The specific reason is that it provides context for the decline of the quality of The Economist articles. Could America’s Adderall shortage have harmed its productivity? I mean, seriously, think about that headline. If you need a hint at how click baity that is, the article itself helpfully suggests in the second para: Coincidence? Probably.
- sanderjd 3y agoOk, it's a bad headline, I agree. What does that have to do with the details about the author that you initially posted?
- EA-3167 3y agoProductivity based on using speed is not sustainable.
- rm_-rf_slash 3y agoPeople drink coffee and tea around the world. Where’s the line, really?
- Gunnerhead 3y agoAlso coca and khat leaves in different parts of the world.
- MobiusHorizons 3y agoThere is very likely no line that would apply uniformly between people or even the same person in different states of stress and health, regardless of the exact criteria you are optimizing for. Some people find even coffee to be too much at times. But at the end of the day amphetamines have some pretty scary and dangerous long term documented effects especially if the person goes without sleep for like periods of time. It’s not as bad as meth (to the best of my understanding) but both are amphetamines.
- danielheath 3y agoAt least for me, ADHD stimulant meds taken in the morning don't impact sleep at all; if I have some more around midday, I need to take additional care with my bedtime routine to get my 8 hours (otherwise it takes too long to fall asleep). Prescription meds are not _anything_ like party drugs, either in dose or in isomer. Comparing them to meth is a reactionary talking point regularly brought up among those upset a previously-underdiagnosed illness is suddenly being treated.
- junofan 3y agoThere’s a pretty big difference between smoking half a gram of meth and taking 5–10 mg of Adderall in tablet form every morning.
- 3y ago
- whitemary 3y agohttps://archive.is/iGya2 https://archive.is/iGya2
- LapsangGuzzler 3y agoOnly in America could you read about a terrible, ongoing opioid crisis impacting millions of families and in the same breath question aloud if our society's inability to feed our amphetamine craving is costing our productivity.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cscurmudgeon 3y agoThe Economist is a UK based outlet.
- 0xcde4c3db 3y agoAlso, the article isn't really about the US. The question about the correlation (the HN title is the subhead; the title is "What performance-enhancing stimulants mean for economic growth") isn't the main topic of the article, but a framing device for discussing the idea that availability of stimulants contributed to the industrial and scientific progress of Europe and the UK in the 19th century.
- Accujack 3y agoIt's not a "craving". Some people need the tiny doses of the stuff (compared to addicts) that they take each day just to function.
- ozarker 3y agoWhy though? We’re so good at short term solutions to shoddily patch the problem but can never find the long term, real solution.
- habitue 3y agoThe brain is complicated. We don't understand it with the same level of detail that we understand computers. We can't refactor it, or reorganize it or fix bugs in it. All we can do is these large, scattershot system-level shifts that result from various drugs. Pretty much every drug makes some things worse and some things better. We don't have an understanding or a technology level that would allow it to be any different. Despite all that, people often find that, on net, certain drugs are a benefit to them more than they are a detriment. Until we live in the bright shiny future where we can understand and remedy the root causes of mental dysfunction, it seems to me it's a good idea to let people get what relief they can in the meantime.
- habitue 3y agoAs usual, a bunch of people are commenting on Adderall not being medication but a performance enhancing drug and... In any other context these people are probably fine with marijuana legalization and libertarian-esque drug policy in general ("What you do with your body is none of my business..."). When it comes to Adderall, suddenly everybody becomes moralizing and sanctimonious.
- tomdell 3y agoI was prescribed Adderall as a child and was made to take it twice daily for many years. I had serious problems sleeping due to it and turned from an outgoing and popular student to a solitary and angry child. It isn't good for the development of children to be prescribing them a lighter version of meth. I was fortunate that my parents allowed me to choose to stop taking it before high school. I don't think anybody is proposing prescribing marijuana to children and forcing them into a lifelong dependency on it. If Adderall is just available, sure, whatever - but a lot of current users of it were initially forced into it without a clear understanding of the consequences.
- idlewords 3y agoIt's possible to simultaneously believe Adderall is a performance-enhancing drug and be just fine with people taking it. We live in an odd moment where you can get legal, high-quality amphetamines online by speaking on video chat with a nurse practitioner who will ask a bunch of leading questions and conclude the five minute interview by prescribing you a highly effective stimulant. Just like with marijuana in some states, you have to observe the proprieties and treat it as a medical intervention. And just like with marijuana, there are some people for whom this really is a life-changing medication. The only area where I'd moralize about Adderall is that we give it to so many kids. There are grade school kids taking a daily dose that would keep me up for three days, and doing so for years. That's beyond messed up. But adults, if they want to, should have at it while they can.
- xyzzy_plugh 3y agoWhen I first sought a prescription, it took several attempts to find a medical professional who would take me seriously and actually help me understand and tackle the underlying issue. They all volunteered a prescription without batting an eye. The regulatory situation in the US is truly a mess. In other countries I have had the exact opposite experience, such that it took years of tests to justify a prescription that was laborious to maintain. What's the point of a drug schedule if it can be abused so openly?
- geysersam 3y agoThis graph shows the productivity change over time: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/PRS85006092 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/PRS85006092. The -2.7% in the article is indistinguishable from noise. Drawing any conclusions from such data is incompetent at best.
- paulpauper 3y agoI agree. It would seem as if a lot of journalism is about looking for correlations between data and trying to draw spurious conclusions from it as click bait or filler. Nicholas Cage and shark attacks for example. Find A and then maybe it is plausible it was caused by B and then say they are related. Maybe we don't know. Coincidence? Probably. Lots of other things could have explained the productivity dip. Equally, though, many of America’s most productive people rely on Adderall to get the job done. It often seems like half of Silicon Valley, the most innovative place on Earth, is on the stuff. And surprising things can cause gdp to rise and fall, including holidays, strikes and the weather. What’s more, the economic history is clear: without things that give people a buzz, the world would still be in the economic dark ages. Maybe we cannot conclude this. I think some of the backlash is due to kids being prescribed Adderall.
- geysersam 3y agoRealized now I read the piece a too sloppily and read "probably. Lots" as "probably not". So not as bad as I thought. > without things that give people a buzz, the world would still be in the economic dark ages. I doubt the economic history is clear on this point.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sublinear 3y agoWell if we're just going to make wild conjectures, mine is about all the more obvious things: young people were promoted while experienced people retired, in many places the overall workforce has been reduced, work from home has hurt social mobility, night life isn't what it used to be, inflation outpaced payroll, etc. Focusing on an Adderall shortage is not seeing the forest for the trees. The root cause of a disruption is bound to be the cause of several other disruptions too. Correlation does not imply causation and all that jazz.
- freitzkriesler2 3y agoHitting the nail on the forehead. Adderall had nothing to do with it.
- not_a_shill 3y agoIt's not debatable that the adderall shortage negatively impacted productivity. It's a productivity enhancer, any shortage is a loss in productivity. It still would even if society was perfect. The amount it did to productivity as a whole is debatable and I wouldn't even care to debate it--who cares? If it was your job to make an argument in favor of increasing production limits next time this happens you could tailor data showing a bigger impact anyways.