Ask Lemmy

A theory I really appreciated that I heard recently was that there's definitely an uptick in female diagnoses of ADHD because, until fairly recently, doctors didn't even believe women could have ADHD. So now it's more out there and there's an uptick in adult women getting tested and being recognized with a diagnosis.

Along with that, yeah just more awareness in general causes more people to go get tested causing more diagnoses. So I'd say things like tiktok contribute to that but only in that they bring awareness to the symptoms people might've not realized were related to ADHD before, not that they cause it.

Not better detection and not tiktok in particular, better information available and less stigma allowing more people to out themselves. Same with LGBTQ+ and many other non-apparent, but taboo traits throughout history. As they become more widely aceptable, people can be out or at least people can better understand that these traits are not them being broken, lazy, evil, or selfish.

It's 100% better detection. ADHD is not something you develop, just like autism or type 1 diabetes. It is measurable (it's visible on MRIs as an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex) and some of the symptoms can be treated with drugs, but the person's body will never not need them (just like type 1 diabetes).

Suggesting that TikTok causes ADHD is similar to suggesting that sodas cause type 1 diabetes, the rise of one correlates with the other because if every kid is consuming soda/TikTok it's easier to spot the ones with Diabetes/ADHD, not because of a cause-effect relationship but because some of them will react differently.

Easy diagnosis. Take speed. Calms you down? ADHD. Speeds you up? No ADHD.

My best friend is ADHD. Dated a long-time friend that was ADHD. My daughter is ADHD.

Give 'em speed, they chill. Give me speed, I bounce off the walls. Many of the same symptoms.

I see tons of young people online, "I want to be special. I have ADHD! Also, I'm trans and gay!"

STFU. You're young, wildly horny and figuring life out. We all went through that.

"But I'm SPECIAL!!!"

No, odds are you aren't. Stop taking away from people who actually have these conditions/problems/lives.

"OK. But I'm OCD!"

Jesus. STFU.

I struggled in school despite being smart. I was tested but they said I didn't have it.

Then as an adult, I re-tested. They updated the things they look for and are more aware of how people can try to mask and deal with their symptoms, which in the past made it difficult to diagnose. I was diagnosed then.

actual diagnoses are likely due to better detection, self diagnoses are likely due to the Internet.

It's probably better detection.

As for internet brain rot, I suspect that's due to the idolization of swiftly delivered entertainment over everything else.

People don't read anymore because it takes time and effort to get into the book. It takes commitment and thought. People would rather have entertainment fed to us in thousands of smaller doses. Get those micro dopamine hits with each swipe of your phone.

I suspect it's also a form of escapism. The world is turning to shit and TikTok brain rot works much in the same way as abusing drugs.

ADHD is, as I understand it with my shitty, distantly earned BS in psychology, congenital and not acquired. You can't just "catch" ADHD, your brain was born with a neurochemical issue - not that I understand neuroscience well, but the dopamine isn't doing its job of keeping your thoughts on target, hence why only immediately rewarding things seem to be possible sometimes.

There are a lot more diagnoses of late, but I've read that part of it is the war on drugs making the Rx systematically scarce so it's just easier to blame people for seeking care rather than addressing the systemic issues. Sort of akin to blaming the consumer for climate change.

TikTok is probably not helping, and it is easy to become addicted. This is a separate matter however.

I don't believe that ADHD can be developed but at the same time TikTok is literally engineered to prey on the symptoms of it.

Sort of like how we didn't start noticing that some kids had attention disorders until we shoved them in a seat in a classroom for 9 hours a day, we didn't start noticing that a lot more kids had the same issues when we gave them a bright, shiny, feature-rich and constantly updating video app for them to use.

Ironically, the algorithm pushing adhd content to my boyfriend is what made him actually realize that that's what he probably has. He just thought everyone felt the way he always has, but were better at handling their life than he was. (There might be a serious low self-esteem problem mixed in there too.)

Ehhhhhh, I think it's a little of column A and a little of column B.

I think the biggest tik tok contributor is people now hear about ADHD and decide because they get bored in schoo sometimes they must have it etc. (As someone who struggles not to chew through their own gums as a form of fidgeting, I find this really irritating.) But let's put that aside because I don't think that's what you're asking about. I'll also ignore the fact that more people are walking into therapists having read all the symptoms and knowing essentially what to say to receive a "diagnosis."

To the actual question, I do think TikTok/smartphones/internet are definitely rewiring our brains in ways that mirror a lot of symptoms of ADD/ADHD. There's a depressingly good book about it called the Shallows but the basic thesis is that the financial incentives of the internet are geared to keep you clicking and moving through things (so you see more new ads) which habituated people to very short term impulses/reward structures. In other words, impulse control and trouble focusing long term.

You can't cause ADHD, you can't prevent ADHD; it's genetic. It's not a result of patterns of thought, or video games, or television. You don't have to 'train' your child's attention span, nor can you destroy it.

People with adhd are naturally drawn to high-stimulation activities, so people associate the two - but that's like saying that smoke burns the toast.

People are looking for it more than they used to. NOBODY was looking for it when I was young. I was probably in high school when I first heard of ADD. (They hadn't added the H yet) and the general understanding was that ADD = a spastic kid that can't sit still and makes too much noise, and that medication just sedated them to the point of complacency.

I was quiet, and liked to read, so when my third and forth grade teachers said that they were concerned about my ability to pay attention, my mom got offended that they would imply there was something wrong with her smart boy.

I wonder how my life might be different if she had listened to them instead of letting me figure it out on my own 30 years later.

I had ADHD a full 20 years before tiktok was invented

I was fourteen when I first got unlimited internet access.

ADHD is something you're born with.

or "tiktok"?

I have ADHD. I have never used tiktok.

Case proven? :)

I don't think you can become ADHD. You're either born with it or not.

Have you been formally diagnosed by a psychiatrist or other qualified healthcare professional?

Undoubtedly ADHD (especially ADD variant) went underreported for a very long time as until only relatively recently we'd have blamed its symptoms on other things. The increase in people being diagnosed is real.

But it needs to be done by a qualified professional because some ADHD symptoms overlap with other neurodiversity or other conditions. So a portion of self diagnosed people will, in fact, not have ADHD but something else.

Just like video games don't make someone a school shooter, tiktok does not make people have ADHD. Both can exacerbate existing problems and people need to be aware of this and look at WHY kids in particular seem to spend a lot of time gaming / scrolling brainless videos. But the causes are more complex and inconvenient so society jumps on easy answers.

I think doctors are diagnosing ADHD more often because it didn't used to be a recognized thing. Awareness and detection are both rising. I also think as pharmaceutical companies make ADHD meds they can profit from, it is yet another incentive for doctors to give an ADHD diagnosis.

I think people are self-diagnosing ADHD more often because, well, I could probably write an essay opining on that. It's not just tiktok because the self-diagnosis trend predates tiktok but tiktok certainly contributes.

Excessive time on TikTok is not good for a person, whether it "causes" ADHD or not.

If you have an ADHD diagnosis, have a conversation with your doctor about both meds and non-med ways to improve your life. Cutting down on TikTok may be advisable, in addition to any meds or other instructions the doctor has given you. Obligatory "Lemmy is not the place for medical advice".