5 ms·

The use of brain-enhancing drugs in colleges continues to rise

13 points by kkleiner 17y ago

arihelgason 17y ago
If schools start testing, we'll end up with a cat & mouse game similar to the one in professional sports. The cat's out of the bag. A recent article serves as a good primer to the ethical issues raised by cognitive enhancers: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2009/09/the-age-of-enhancement/ http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2009/09/the-age-of-enhance...
Alex3917 17y ago
These so-called 'smart drugs' are poorly named. They don't actually make you smarter, they just make it easier to focus on doing work.
- arram 17y ago
  Intelligence has a lot of dimensions. It's not unreasonable to say focus is one of them.
  - chrischen 17y ago
    Supposedly Adderall stunts creativity. In this respect it makes you dumber. So it is unreasonable to say these drugs make you smarter.
    - hristov 17y ago
      That's the problem -- anything that makes you "more focused" will stun your creativity and may cause you to obsessively repeat mindless tasks and anything that makes you more creative will prevent you from getting anything done. So in the end you may as well just use your original god-provided brain.
      - greml1n 17y ago
        This is a non-sensical argument. Where did you get this false spectrum of creative <-> focused from?
        Alex3917 17y ago
        It's a pretty common belief. I've seen it numerous times online, not sure if I've ever seen it tested though.
        chrischen 17y ago
        I've read it somewhere too. It makes sense if you think about it. In certain types of ADHD, the hyperactiity is in the thoughts. So the person would have more thoughts racing through his or her head than normal and this probably constitutes the creativity since they have more random thoughts to seed a good idea. The drive for this is thought to be caused by understimulation. In other words the mind is bored, so we start racing through thoughts to try to make something more exciting. What Adderall does is stimulate your mind so that it's no longer bored. Less random thoughts are needed and the person can focus on one thing better. Of course, the random thoughts, which constituted the creativity, is traded off. It's actually my theory behind how it works (I have ADHD).
      - jamesbritt 17y ago
        They're orthogonal. When I'm focused, I still get odd, interesting ideas popping in my head, but I have the wherewithal to either ignore them or to jot them down for latter. There's a difference between focused and indifferent. My experience with assorted nootropics is that, with the better ones, boring things are still boring, but I have the means to do them anyway if I have to.
        chrischen 17y ago
        It hinders, it does not prevent you from being creative. And the reason why it would make you less creative is that it makes you more satisfied. When you are satisfied in your mind you naturally make less of an effort to strain your thoughts to come up with something exciting. If you're on nootropics and something is exciting, does it get more exciting? And something boring becomes doable because you have less urge to replace it with something more exciting. So it obviously would still seem comparatively boring.
    - ddemchuk 17y ago
      It wouldn't be making you "dumber" then, it would simply be making you less creative. I know a lot of brilliant people who are not creative whatsoever. I also know a bunch of very creative people who would normally be considered dumb using common metrics. less creative != dumb
      - chrischen 17y ago
        I was following along johnny's reasoning. I was saying that if by his reasoning adderall makes you smart, then it makes you dumber too. He said there are various components to intelligence. Creativity could be one too. So if focus is one aspect and it is enhanced, and it makes you smart, then creativity, which is hindered makes you dumber. Sorry if I wasn't clear before.
        johnnybgoode 17y ago
        I think you mean arram's reasoning? I agree that if adderall stunts creativity, it is at best somewhat misleading to say it makes you smarter. Imagine someone said this: "Hey, I found this new drug. It makes you smarter and less creative." That should be enough to make anyone go, "Huh?"
  - pyre 17y ago
    So someone that is more focused can be reasonably defined as a 'smarter' or 'more intelligent' person? Somehow I don't really think this fits the majority view of what 'smarter' means, and when writing articles like this the majority view of the meaning of a word is what really matters (at least majority of your audience).
johnnybgoode 17y ago
This whole thing is nuts. Please see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=857922 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=857922 Also, Einstein on exams: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=864539 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=864539
- chrischen 17y ago
  I agree the idea of making yourself perform better for a test is ludicrous. These are performance enhancers for something that doesn't matter. If you are self-motivated and driven like Einstein, or like a startup founder, you will have the motivation and focus that Adderal provides. Rather than taking drugs to make ourselves fit into an unideal model of education, why not just modify the education system so that students learn what they want? Yea it would be a major overhaul, but we're going in the wrong direction here.
  - pyre 17y ago
    The problem here is that there is a chasm between the students that want to learn, and the students that see learning as a chore, and just 'want to have fun' because 'learning/reading is for nerds.' Just allowing students to learn what they want to, won't necessarily change the 'poor' culture that discourages learning (e.g. poor, racist blacks that view learning as a 'white thing' or just poor people that view people that want to learn or are 'smart' as pretentious).
    - chrischen 17y ago
      Personally I think everyone wants to learn something, because we all have some sort of desire which needs some new knowledge to be had in order to be achieved. The problem is that our current educational system tells students to learn something usually at an unoptimal time. What I mean is that if I am I taught algebra when I realize I want to learn it, and I do it myself, there is less time wasted in being forced to learn it.
      - pyre 17y ago
dpapathanasiou 17y ago
I like what Michael Mandel had to say on this subject back in 2006: "Suppose that a pharmaceutical company was selling a pill that would improve your memory by 30% or your IQ by 30%, with the same sort of side effects as steroids. Would you be willing to take them for 3 or 5 critical years in your career? What if you knew that everyone else was taking them? What if you knew that the Chinese or the French were taking them? And would you be willing to give your kids these pills in, say, the junior year of high school, to increase the odds of getting a good score on the SAT?" http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2006/03/steroids_vs_the.html http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/arch...
hristov 17y ago
Honestly I do not think any of these drugs really work. Notice how the article does not cite any studies showing these drugs work on people that are not suffering any mental disorders. I remember in college there were some people that thought they could take a pill to make them smarter but from my perception those people started out dumb and stayed dumb after they took their pills. I am sure that if someone has ADD they may benefit from drugs that are prescribed to treat that but I doubt there would be a benefit otherwise. So no, they should not be treated like steroids. The main problem with steroids is that they work.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- silentbicycle 17y ago
  Also, the majority listed (though not the racetams) are stimulants, either related to amphetamines or e.g. ritalin. Those are generally understood to have troublesome side effects. Getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, and eating well will have a much bigger impact.
pie 17y ago
It amazes me that stimulants continue to be called "cognitive enhancers" or "brain-enhancing drugs." ...Really? Focus and persistence do not equate to intelligence. Not by a long shot, and certainly not at the cost of awareness and creativity.
ramanujan 17y ago
A key difference is that the games played with higher intelligence are not zero sum. If someone takes Provigil and shortens their life by 5 years (say), yet comes up with a breakthrough in physics that improves the lives of millions, then it's not the same as just running a bit faster in the 100m dash by using steroids. The latter is (arguably[1]) cheating, the former is self-sacrificing. As for steroids themselves, they are only considered bad because they have negative side effects. If they had no side effects, they'd be like taking a multivitamin. [1] why arguably? Because things like Phelps' bodysuit are also arguably cheating.

13 points by kkleiner 17y ago

If schools start testing, we'll end up with a cat & mouse game similar to the one in professional sports. The cat's out of the bag. A recent article serves as a good primer to the ethical issues raised by cognitive enhancers: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2009/09/the-age-of-enhancement/ http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2009/09/the-age-of-enhance...

Alex3917 17y ago

These so-called 'smart drugs' are poorly named. They don't actually make you smarter, they just make it easier to focus on doing work.

arram 17y ago
Intelligence has a lot of dimensions. It's not unreasonable to say focus is one of them.
- chrischen 17y ago
  Supposedly Adderall stunts creativity. In this respect it makes you dumber. So it is unreasonable to say these drugs make you smarter.
  - hristov 17y ago
    That's the problem -- anything that makes you "more focused" will stun your creativity and may cause you to obsessively repeat mindless tasks and anything that makes you more creative will prevent you from getting anything done. So in the end you may as well just use your original god-provided brain.
    - greml1n 17y ago
      This is a non-sensical argument. Where did you get this false spectrum of creative <-> focused from?
      - Alex3917 17y ago
        It's a pretty common belief. I've seen it numerous times online, not sure if I've ever seen it tested though.
      - chrischen 17y ago
        I've read it somewhere too. It makes sense if you think about it. In certain types of ADHD, the hyperactiity is in the thoughts. So the person would have more thoughts racing through his or her head than normal and this probably constitutes the creativity since they have more random thoughts to seed a good idea. The drive for this is thought to be caused by understimulation. In other words the mind is bored, so we start racing through thoughts to try to make something more exciting. What Adderall does is stimulate your mind so that it's no longer bored. Less random thoughts are needed and the person can focus on one thing better. Of course, the random thoughts, which constituted the creativity, is traded off. It's actually my theory behind how it works (I have ADHD).
    - jamesbritt 17y ago
      They're orthogonal. When I'm focused, I still get odd, interesting ideas popping in my head, but I have the wherewithal to either ignore them or to jot them down for latter. There's a difference between focused and indifferent. My experience with assorted nootropics is that, with the better ones, boring things are still boring, but I have the means to do them anyway if I have to.
      - chrischen 17y ago
        It hinders, it does not prevent you from being creative. And the reason why it would make you less creative is that it makes you more satisfied. When you are satisfied in your mind you naturally make less of an effort to strain your thoughts to come up with something exciting. If you're on nootropics and something is exciting, does it get more exciting? And something boring becomes doable because you have less urge to replace it with something more exciting. So it obviously would still seem comparatively boring.
  - ddemchuk 17y ago
    It wouldn't be making you "dumber" then, it would simply be making you less creative. I know a lot of brilliant people who are not creative whatsoever. I also know a bunch of very creative people who would normally be considered dumb using common metrics. less creative != dumb
    - chrischen 17y ago
      I was following along johnny's reasoning. I was saying that if by his reasoning adderall makes you smart, then it makes you dumber too. He said there are various components to intelligence. Creativity could be one too. So if focus is one aspect and it is enhanced, and it makes you smart, then creativity, which is hindered makes you dumber. Sorry if I wasn't clear before.
      - johnnybgoode 17y ago
        I think you mean arram's reasoning? I agree that if adderall stunts creativity, it is at best somewhat misleading to say it makes you smarter. Imagine someone said this: "Hey, I found this new drug. It makes you smarter and less creative." That should be enough to make anyone go, "Huh?"
- pyre 17y ago
  So someone that is more focused can be reasonably defined as a 'smarter' or 'more intelligent' person? Somehow I don't really think this fits the majority view of what 'smarter' means, and when writing articles like this the majority view of the meaning of a word is what really matters (at least majority of your audience).

johnnybgoode 17y ago

This whole thing is nuts. Please see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=857922 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=857922 Also, Einstein on exams: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=864539 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=864539

chrischen 17y ago
I agree the idea of making yourself perform better for a test is ludicrous. These are performance enhancers for something that doesn't matter. If you are self-motivated and driven like Einstein, or like a startup founder, you will have the motivation and focus that Adderal provides. Rather than taking drugs to make ourselves fit into an unideal model of education, why not just modify the education system so that students learn what they want? Yea it would be a major overhaul, but we're going in the wrong direction here.
- pyre 17y ago
  The problem here is that there is a chasm between the students that want to learn, and the students that see learning as a chore, and just 'want to have fun' because 'learning/reading is for nerds.' Just allowing students to learn what they want to, won't necessarily change the 'poor' culture that discourages learning (e.g. poor, racist blacks that view learning as a 'white thing' or just poor people that view people that want to learn or are 'smart' as pretentious).
  - chrischen 17y ago
    Personally I think everyone wants to learn something, because we all have some sort of desire which needs some new knowledge to be had in order to be achieved. The problem is that our current educational system tells students to learn something usually at an unoptimal time. What I mean is that if I am I taught algebra when I realize I want to learn it, and I do it myself, there is less time wasted in being forced to learn it.
    - pyre 17y ago

dpapathanasiou 17y ago

I like what Michael Mandel had to say on this subject back in 2006: "Suppose that a pharmaceutical company was selling a pill that would improve your memory by 30% or your IQ by 30%, with the same sort of side effects as steroids. Would you be willing to take them for 3 or 5 critical years in your career? What if you knew that everyone else was taking them? What if you knew that the Chinese or the French were taking them? And would you be willing to give your kids these pills in, say, the junior year of high school, to increase the odds of getting a good score on the SAT?" http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2006/03/steroids_vs_the.html http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/arch...

hristov 17y ago

Honestly I do not think any of these drugs really work. Notice how the article does not cite any studies showing these drugs work on people that are not suffering any mental disorders. I remember in college there were some people that thought they could take a pill to make them smarter but from my perception those people started out dumb and stayed dumb after they took their pills. I am sure that if someone has ADD they may benefit from drugs that are prescribed to treat that but I doubt there would be a benefit otherwise. So no, they should not be treated like steroids. The main problem with steroids is that they work.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
silentbicycle 17y ago
Also, the majority listed (though not the racetams) are stimulants, either related to amphetamines or e.g. ritalin. Those are generally understood to have troublesome side effects. Getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, and eating well will have a much bigger impact.

pie 17y ago

It amazes me that stimulants continue to be called "cognitive enhancers" or "brain-enhancing drugs." ...Really? Focus and persistence do not equate to intelligence. Not by a long shot, and certainly not at the cost of awareness and creativity.

ramanujan 17y ago

A key difference is that the games played with higher intelligence are not zero sum. If someone takes Provigil and shortens their life by 5 years (say), yet comes up with a breakthrough in physics that improves the lives of millions, then it's not the same as just running a bit faster in the 100m dash by using steroids. The latter is (arguably[1]) cheating, the former is self-sacrificing. As for steroids themselves, they are only considered bad because they have negative side effects. If they had no side effects, they'd be like taking a multivitamin. [1] why arguably? Because things like Phelps' bodysuit are also arguably cheating.