I do believe there is some truth to it. The reason we have had an upswing in diagnosed people is that society's demands have gotten higher and what was previously considered normal is no longer within the normality corridor.
the same can be said about things like mild intellectual disability. With increasing demands, not just in the jib market but in society as a whole, is has become much harder to find a place for them. Not only are they poorer than the average person, they are a lot sicker - both physically and mentally - with a lot less resources to manage.
This is going to become a larger societal problem if we wait longer.
This is certainly how I feel. My desire to get a diagnosis and to start medication was entirely driven by the need to perform at work. After becoming self-employed and setting my own schedule, I lost the need entirely.
It popped up again after 5+ years, when AI started wrecking my industry.
Both times, I stopped medication because while it made me economically productive, it hollowed out the parts of me that I cared most about.
>
I do believe there is some truth to it. The reason we have had an upswing in diagnosed people is that society's demands have gotten higher and what was previously considered normal is no longer within the normality corridor.
Related quote from the Jargon file [1]:
"1994-95's fad behavioral disease was a syndrome called Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), supposedly characterized by (among other things) a combination of short attention span with an ability to ‘hyperfocus’ imaginatively on interesting tasks. In 1998-1999 another syndrome that is said to overlap with many hacker traits entered popular awareness: Asperger's syndrome (AS). This disorder is also sometimes called ‘high-function autism’, though researchers are divided on whether AS is in fact a mild form of autism or a distinct syndrome with a different etiology. AS patients exhibit mild to severe deficits in interpreting facial and body-language cues and in modeling or empathizing with others' emotions. Though some AS patients exhibit mild retardation, others compensate for their deficits with high intelligence and analytical ability, and frequently seek out technical fields where problem-solving abilities are at a premium and people skills are relatively unimportant. Both syndromes are thought to relate to abnormalities in neurotransmitter chemistry, especially the brain's processing of serotonin.
Many hackers have noticed that mainstream culture has shown a tendency to pathologize and medicalize normal variations in personality, especially those variations that make life more complicated for authority figures and conformists. Thus, hackers aware of the issue tend to be among those questioning whether ADD and AS actually exist; and if so whether they are really ‘diseases’ rather than extremes of a normal genetic variation like having freckles or being able to taste DPT. In either case, they have a sneaking tendency to wonder if these syndromes are over-diagnosed and over-treated. After all, people in authority will always be inconvenienced by schoolchildren or workers or citizens who are prickly, intelligent individualists — thus, any social system that depends on authority relationships will tend to helpfully ostracize and therapize and drug such ‘abnormal’ people until they are properly docile and stupid and ‘well-socialized’.
So hackers tend to believe they have good reason for skepticism about clinical explanations of the hacker personality. That being said, most would also concede that some hacker traits coincide with indicators for non-hyperactive ADD and AS — the status of caffeine as a hacker beverage of choice may be connected to the fact that it bonds to the same neural receptors as Ritalin, the drug most commonly prescribed for ADD. It is probably true that boosters of both would find a rather higher rate of clinical ADD among hackers than the supposedly mainstream-normal 3-5% (AS is rarer at 0.4-0.5%)."
Channel 4 in the UK isn't strictly speaking a commercial channel, it's state-owned and has a legal remit towards public service like the BBC, although it's funded by advertisements rather than the licence fee.
Also, a scientist is interviewed in the documentary (I haven't seen the documentary, but my understanding is that it is the only real expert involved), Prof Katya Rubia, and they recently reacted to the documentary:
"My own contribution to this programme has been largely misrepresented as my comments were cherry-picked, truncated and presented out of context to make them fit into the programme’s narrative"
They comment further in the article, also concluding that the documentary is non-scientific and ill-advised.
Well, I don't know where was it then, but I can clearly see where it is now.
Severe case: a person takes wrong direction at roundabout. Another day they move into opposite direction lane. And then they don't see traffic light. And again. Overall they drive ok. This never happens on Ritalin and some of the others. Regularly without medication. MRI is okay by the way, no organic changes. The person is a good engineer, not a junkie.
So, if you say that the syndrom does not exist - I could very much wish you to meet someone like that. Preferably not on while you drive in opposite direction.
I've yet to meet someone with ADHD or ADHS that doesn't consume too much.
Most children I know from kindergarden or school (as a parent) bragged about their gaming consoles, gaming mobiles and consumption of drinks full of sugar and caffeine.
And their parents are dumb enough to talk down everybody else who sees excessive gaming critical.
No joke: some of them choose "gaming" as a project topic and the teachers failed to dismiss it because they're happy those kids are interested in anything at all.
It's not black and white. Maybe those kids would have issues even without overconsumption. But I don't see anyone trying a proper approach (remove or at least restrict the distraction first).
Instead those diagnoses seem to have become a cheap excuse for free wheeling.
whats wrong with gaming? if they dont go out and get zero exercise thats a big problem but a lot of kids are "excessive" gamers and play football after school.
and even with the real problematic cases the solution is working with them to find something thats even more fun to get them off the console. but thats hard when parents are scared to leave their kids alone with their friends even if theres a trusted adult nearby because they feel like cant trust anyone out of the family. i think a lot of "lazy" kids just want an escape from their controlling parents, and if their family dont let them do it outside they just dont go.
honestly sometimes i think adhd is not a bad thing at all. it can protect you from drug addictions (stimulants dont get you high), push you to constantly try new things, let our culture break free from depression novels and classical music. and it might be the death of useless office jobs that contribute nothing to society, because a lot of people with adhd would take manual labor or food service over something that feels boring even if it pays more.
doom scrolling comes from being broke and stuck at home with nothing better to do. the moment something better appears (more social, more exciting) most people get off their phones and only use them to record the moment. and thats not a bad thing either.
I believe that you are inverting cause and effect. These behaviors manifest at my worst, when I am tired. Under medication, some disappeared completely.
(tl;dr you are confusing symptoms of a disorder with its root cause. See evidence below.)
I don't understand, are you suggesting that overconsumption / overstimulation behavior is / could be the cause of ADHD?
Because they certainly are effects and symptoms (not root cause) of ADHD, this is a well established fact, kind of core part of ADHD literature and research, actually... (I mean: dysregulation of dopamine; impulse control (lack thereof); higher substance abuse risk (esp. when unmedicated)).
While excessive screen time or poor diet can exacerbate executive dysfunction or poor sleep in any human (esp. child), they do not create the neurodevelopmental deficits that define ADHD. Taking away a video game does not repair a child's dopamine transporters.
I feel there is enough literature to substantiate this. I'm interested in this because I have a clinical diagnosis of ADHD which I got only in adulthood, but better later than never; getting the diagnosis has absolutely helped me in life, in various respects.
By the way: I recognize that in certain countries, ADHD may be overdiagnosed (idk, though); medications overprescribed (again, idk, but acknowledging the risk here; not here in Baltics (LT) though, I think);
AND - what ruffles my jimmies PARTICULARLY - prevalent overuse of ADHD term and culture of (over)self-diagnosis of ADHD in social media and elsewhere (general culture, too; I hate that so much, I believe it contributes to such one-sided unscientific docs as well as not-scientifically-grounded viewpoints).
Those over-self-diagnosing people really do not help the rest of us, to put it mildly.
As for canonical evidence and studies:
1. The World Federation of ADHD International Consensus Statement: 208 Evidence-based conclusions about the disorder (Faraone et al., 2021) - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33549739/
I do believe there is some truth to it. The reason we have had an upswing in diagnosed people is that society's demands have gotten higher and what was previously considered normal is no longer within the normality corridor.
the same can be said about things like mild intellectual disability. With increasing demands, not just in the jib market but in society as a whole, is has become much harder to find a place for them. Not only are they poorer than the average person, they are a lot sicker - both physically and mentally - with a lot less resources to manage.
This is going to become a larger societal problem if we wait longer.
This is certainly how I feel. My desire to get a diagnosis and to start medication was entirely driven by the need to perform at work. After becoming self-employed and setting my own schedule, I lost the need entirely.
It popped up again after 5+ years, when AI started wrecking my industry.
Both times, I stopped medication because while it made me economically productive, it hollowed out the parts of me that I cared most about.
> I do believe there is some truth to it. The reason we have had an upswing in diagnosed people is that society's demands have gotten higher and what was previously considered normal is no longer within the normality corridor.
Related quote from the Jargon file [1]:
"1994-95's fad behavioral disease was a syndrome called Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), supposedly characterized by (among other things) a combination of short attention span with an ability to ‘hyperfocus’ imaginatively on interesting tasks. In 1998-1999 another syndrome that is said to overlap with many hacker traits entered popular awareness: Asperger's syndrome (AS). This disorder is also sometimes called ‘high-function autism’, though researchers are divided on whether AS is in fact a mild form of autism or a distinct syndrome with a different etiology. AS patients exhibit mild to severe deficits in interpreting facial and body-language cues and in modeling or empathizing with others' emotions. Though some AS patients exhibit mild retardation, others compensate for their deficits with high intelligence and analytical ability, and frequently seek out technical fields where problem-solving abilities are at a premium and people skills are relatively unimportant. Both syndromes are thought to relate to abnormalities in neurotransmitter chemistry, especially the brain's processing of serotonin.
Many hackers have noticed that mainstream culture has shown a tendency to pathologize and medicalize normal variations in personality, especially those variations that make life more complicated for authority figures and conformists. Thus, hackers aware of the issue tend to be among those questioning whether ADD and AS actually exist; and if so whether they are really ‘diseases’ rather than extremes of a normal genetic variation like having freckles or being able to taste DPT. In either case, they have a sneaking tendency to wonder if these syndromes are over-diagnosed and over-treated. After all, people in authority will always be inconvenienced by schoolchildren or workers or citizens who are prickly, intelligent individualists — thus, any social system that depends on authority relationships will tend to helpfully ostracize and therapize and drug such ‘abnormal’ people until they are properly docile and stupid and ‘well-socialized’.
So hackers tend to believe they have good reason for skepticism about clinical explanations of the hacker personality. That being said, most would also concede that some hacker traits coincide with indicators for non-hyperactive ADD and AS — the status of caffeine as a hacker beverage of choice may be connected to the fact that it bonds to the same neural receptors as Ritalin, the drug most commonly prescribed for ADD. It is probably true that boosters of both would find a rather higher rate of clinical ADD among hackers than the supposedly mainstream-normal 3-5% (AS is rarer at 0.4-0.5%)."
--
[1] http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/weaknesses.html
A commercial TV channel attempting to attract attention and viewers by courting controversy. What a surprise.
Channel 4 in the UK isn't strictly speaking a commercial channel, it's state-owned and has a legal remit towards public service like the BBC, although it's funded by advertisements rather than the licence fee.
Funny how bias works
Something questioned by millions is treated as gospel, and one program asking questions is controversial
This alone reveals the power of myth
In Richard Murphy's review of ‘The Great ADHD myth?’ he states that Channel 4 should hang its head in shame. [1]
tl;dr:
"[Pemberton] failed to mention that he specialises in geriatric care."
"No evidence was presented from anyone who suffered from the condition, except a 10-year-old boy."
"...a biased view on a subject where the opinion presented will cause significant harm..."
"...deeply ethically and politically irresponsible."
Keep in mind that this is an article by the BBC about a BBC documentary. Think critically about bias in state run media or suffer the consequences.
[^1]: https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2026/08/19/channel-4-sho...
Also, a scientist is interviewed in the documentary (I haven't seen the documentary, but my understanding is that it is the only real expert involved), Prof Katya Rubia, and they recently reacted to the documentary:
"My own contribution to this programme has been largely misrepresented as my comments were cherry-picked, truncated and presented out of context to make them fit into the programme’s narrative"
They comment further in the article, also concluding that the documentary is non-scientific and ill-advised.
https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-the-tv...
As the author of Ritalin Nation I can only say Bravo
In the 1950's, gallup polling had chewing gum and cutting the queue the biggest problems in school; where was ADHD then?
Putting symptoms in a psychiatry manual is toxic. Put them in the environment and history
Well, I don't know where was it then, but I can clearly see where it is now.
Severe case: a person takes wrong direction at roundabout. Another day they move into opposite direction lane. And then they don't see traffic light. And again. Overall they drive ok. This never happens on Ritalin and some of the others. Regularly without medication. MRI is okay by the way, no organic changes. The person is a good engineer, not a junkie.
So, if you say that the syndrom does not exist - I could very much wish you to meet someone like that. Preferably not on while you drive in opposite direction.
I've yet to meet someone with ADHD or ADHS that doesn't consume too much. Most children I know from kindergarden or school (as a parent) bragged about their gaming consoles, gaming mobiles and consumption of drinks full of sugar and caffeine. And their parents are dumb enough to talk down everybody else who sees excessive gaming critical. No joke: some of them choose "gaming" as a project topic and the teachers failed to dismiss it because they're happy those kids are interested in anything at all.
It's not black and white. Maybe those kids would have issues even without overconsumption. But I don't see anyone trying a proper approach (remove or at least restrict the distraction first). Instead those diagnoses seem to have become a cheap excuse for free wheeling.
whats wrong with gaming? if they dont go out and get zero exercise thats a big problem but a lot of kids are "excessive" gamers and play football after school.
and even with the real problematic cases the solution is working with them to find something thats even more fun to get them off the console. but thats hard when parents are scared to leave their kids alone with their friends even if theres a trusted adult nearby because they feel like cant trust anyone out of the family. i think a lot of "lazy" kids just want an escape from their controlling parents, and if their family dont let them do it outside they just dont go.
honestly sometimes i think adhd is not a bad thing at all. it can protect you from drug addictions (stimulants dont get you high), push you to constantly try new things, let our culture break free from depression novels and classical music. and it might be the death of useless office jobs that contribute nothing to society, because a lot of people with adhd would take manual labor or food service over something that feels boring even if it pays more.
doom scrolling comes from being broke and stuck at home with nothing better to do. the moment something better appears (more social, more exciting) most people get off their phones and only use them to record the moment. and thats not a bad thing either.
I believe that you are inverting cause and effect. These behaviors manifest at my worst, when I am tired. Under medication, some disappeared completely.
(tl;dr you are confusing symptoms of a disorder with its root cause. See evidence below.)
I don't understand, are you suggesting that overconsumption / overstimulation behavior is / could be the cause of ADHD?
Because they certainly are effects and symptoms (not root cause) of ADHD, this is a well established fact, kind of core part of ADHD literature and research, actually... (I mean: dysregulation of dopamine; impulse control (lack thereof); higher substance abuse risk (esp. when unmedicated)).
While excessive screen time or poor diet can exacerbate executive dysfunction or poor sleep in any human (esp. child), they do not create the neurodevelopmental deficits that define ADHD. Taking away a video game does not repair a child's dopamine transporters.
I feel there is enough literature to substantiate this. I'm interested in this because I have a clinical diagnosis of ADHD which I got only in adulthood, but better later than never; getting the diagnosis has absolutely helped me in life, in various respects.
By the way: I recognize that in certain countries, ADHD may be overdiagnosed (idk, though); medications overprescribed (again, idk, but acknowledging the risk here; not here in Baltics (LT) though, I think);
AND - what ruffles my jimmies PARTICULARLY - prevalent overuse of ADHD term and culture of (over)self-diagnosis of ADHD in social media and elsewhere (general culture, too; I hate that so much, I believe it contributes to such one-sided unscientific docs as well as not-scientifically-grounded viewpoints).
Those over-self-diagnosing people really do not help the rest of us, to put it mildly.
As for canonical evidence and studies:
1. The World Federation of ADHD International Consensus Statement: 208 Evidence-based conclusions about the disorder (Faraone et al., 2021) - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33549739/
2. Dr. Nora Volkow's dopamine research (e.g. JAMA, 2009) - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/184547
3. Dr. Russell Barkley's Theory of Behavioral Inhibition (see e.g. his long talk directed towards parents of ADHD children, if curious; on youtube)