this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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Having recently been diagnosed with ADHD I've taken part in several classes on ADHD to learn more about it. And the consensus is that no external factors like that cause ADHD. However, I'm sure this topic of algorithm driven addictive short form videos for a very young audience is being studied more now than ever so who knows what the consensus on that will be in the future. Causing ADHD or not, I don't think it's healthy either way.
Yeah it can certainly cause problems, it's just not ADHD.
ADHD doesn't even really mean short attention spans, it's more of the inability to willingly direct attention. It's the same way people incorrectly use "OCD" to mean liking things clean and/or orderly.
I have ADHD and I've had times where I've done the same thing for 14 hours straight (even forgetting to eat) when my brain decides it wants to latch onto that thing. You just need to be sufficiently stimulated, hence why stimulants can work as a treatment.
Both of these are the product of needing constant stimulation. I understand your point that hyper-focus is also part of ADD/ADHD, and I certainly am not going to make claims about how your brain is changing structurally without evidence behind it.
So this is mere conjecture for a mechanism:
What these apps (with short format video being the worst) do is train your brain to expect a constant stream of dopamine hits. Novelty (presumably even trash novelty like TikTok) triggers dopamine, your brain becomes dependent on that steady stream of dopamine fix, and your body starts craving it once you remove that pattern of behavior.
This is very similar to ADHD, which is also strongly connected to problems with how dopamine is regulated. It's not as simple as just not enough dopamine or poor uptake or whatever, but it's reasonably clear that it plays a role.
So both cases are a result of poor dopamine regulation causing a need for stimulation that has a negative impact on ability to function from day to day. They're probably at minimum relatively similar.
This is my understanding of it all as well. Like, if your parents never stfu as a kid or you never had a chance to really be alone and quiet and safe as a baby, your brain, your very concept of self, is hardwired for constant stimulation such that it's uncomfortable not to have it, to the point of sitting their for 14 hours reading Wikipedia pages or whatever because it's more stimulating that it would be to stop and wash the floors or so the laundry, or maybe just talking your fingers in class or letting your mind read every sign and bumper sticker while you're driving. It's also why all the most effective treatments are about emotional regulation.
I'm not going to argue if it's identical to ADHD chemically. I'm not sure we have the level of understanding of the low level mechanisms to differentiate (if it even is actually different), or even that ADHD is "one mechanism" and not a bundle of similar mechanisms of different types of disregulation with similar outcomes, because diagnosis of any mental difference is effectively all about checking boxes on patterns of behavior.
But even if there's something you can point to as clearly a distinguishing factor to say "this isn't ADHD as we've defined it", which I'm not sure you can, I'm not sure how you say they're not similar or related.
I think you misread me. I'm in total agreement with you.
No, I got you, sorry. I was just using another reply as an excuse to expand a little I guess lol.
That doesn't sound right to me. ADHD is a constellation of shared symptoms, grouped together and given a name for insurance and diagnostic purposes and because the treatment overlaps. The cause of those symptoms are obviously multifactorial, heavily correlated with both genetics and childhood stress. Bad news if your mom or dad didn't ever stfu when you were a baby, hardwired you to be uncomfortable without constant external stimulation and validation.
Schools at least where I live do a much better job of teaching kids to manage their emotions. And I hope parents of young children are doing a better job as well, seems like it to me, but I'm in a well off rural bubble.
I imagine TikTok sets back any progress and I'm glad it's banned. TikTok brain is a real thing. Human beings are meant to be able to focus intensely in one purposeful thing for several hours at a time and with practice anyone can learn to be highly productive and attentive if they can find a time and place to be free from distractions, and anyone can have a super memory if they set aside time and purposefully train their memory; memory is a product of focus.