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ADD/ADHD
ADD/ADHD
Disorders or evolutionary responses?
Matt Vera
The teaching system of today is based almost entirely on an auditory learner. It has been proven that the general populace of people learn better visually rather than anything else. Even more so are people with ADD/ADHD, for these people visual and hands on learning is truly the best way, which is why the internet is such an amazing feeing ground for these people. I think it’s time we change our teaching system to fit these ‘disorders,’ considering that they are on such a rise that soon we will have an entire generation of children who are diagnosed with these ‘disorders.’ Instead of viewing them as disorders, we should see this as an evolutionary step in our human genome.
In the past and today, people with Attention Deficit Disorder (A.D.D.) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (A.D.H.D.) have been out-cast by society as being different and slow to learn. Now, with the coming of television and even more prevalent, the internet; people with these disorders may actually be an evolutionary response to the changing technology. Instead of shunning people with these disorders, maybe it is time to change the social norm and face the fact that due to the media of today and the way that information is retained; faster is better. Instead of placing children with these abilities in separate classrooms or giving them extra attention, we should change our teaching methods to fit a society that is rapidly learning to digest information on a massive scale very quickly. Imagine a world much like The Matrix, where any type of information is available by plugging your brain into the network.
It has not been extensively researched, but thus far studies on children and adolescents have shown that the media’s influence is shortening attention spans. A study by Dimitri Christakis reports that, “Frequent TV viewers in early childhood were most likely to score in the highest 10% for concentration problems, impulsiveness and restlessness.” Even though the majority of all these studies are based on television as the main form of medium, the internet is no different in the speediness of its communication. Though, it has been noticed by the educational community that these disorders have been becoming more and more frequent over the years. According to Eileen Bailey, “boys are diagnosed with ADD/ADHD 3 times more often than girls,” this would make sense since the general populace of boys spends more time online and playing video games than girls. Within the past decade there has been a noticeable spike in these disorders, the sales of Ritalin and Adderall will coincide with these findings. As Susan Greenfield said in her article entitled Modern technology is changing the way our brains work, "Throw in circumstantial evidence that links a sharp rise in diagnoses of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and the associated three-fold increase in Ritalin prescriptions over the past ten years with the boom in computer games and you have an immensely worrying scenario." It is not just the attention span of children and adults that has been affected by the internet, but also their activity in and out of social life.
ADHD is on the same rise as ADD and both are increasing at an alarming rate. “Some 4 to 5 percent of children have ADHD and 60 percent of these children carry symptoms well into adulthood” (Ma). This relatively large spike of disorders in the population could only be attributed to the overstimulation of our brains caused by the media input we receive. Due to the incredible speed at which the internet can receive any amount or kind of information that we want, it is no wonder that children are losing their attention to things that take a long time, like reading a book. Not only are they losing their attention span, but their behavior is out of control as well. The fact that the internet can constantly please users by showing them exactly what they want to see when they want to see it causes children to constantly want attention and constantly be over stimulated with information and/or useless information. This over stimulation of the brain causes children to be constantly on edge looking for things all the time to excite them or make them laugh. As Greenfield puts it, “[…]'pure' pleasure - that is to say, activity during which you truly 'let yourself go'” is causing children to feel that they are always in a state of ‘pure’ pleasure and must constantly pursue it. "We could be raising a hedonistic generation who live only in the thrill of the computer-generated moment, and are in distinct danger of detaching themselves from what the rest of us would consider the real world" (Greenfield). However ‘new’ these symptoms may seem, some of the greater minds of this world have been said to have shown signs of ADHD; though I feel that these diagnoses are after the fact that men like Einstein, Lennon, or Beethoven died. (Ma)
It is also shown that these disorders may not necessarily be a bad thing. Some have said that these are actually responses due to the stimulation of our brains. A case study done at Harvard Medical School showed that people that had 5 days of intensive piano training had similar brain activity and growth as another group who merely sat in a room and imagined playing the piano for 5 days. So these diseases are not only hereditary as some have thought but actually respond to the environment that surrounds us. There is no doubt in any mind that the over stimulation of our brains due to the speed of the flow of information to us is changing our minds and our bodies; it is whether these changes are good or bad that scientist have yet to decide. Some say that instead of viewing this negatively, we should restructure our teaching system to fit the needs of this growing responsive system in our population. Instead, we should teach these methods as if they are adaptations to our ever changing ‘norm’ in society. As Stuart Fischoff is quoted for saying, "These kids could be expressing 'the new brain.' They could be an advance guard that suggests we may need new ways of teaching children exposed to a lot of media stimulation. Brains may be changing, and we don't know if it's going to be bad or not." It is the fault of our non changing attitudes that people have been made to suffer over the past centuries. Whenever a new phase of social structure runs through society it is always met with such resistance that those who do take the initiative are usually shunned for doing so. However, in the case of people diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, they do not have a choice. If one has ever dealt with a person who has ADHD, that person would know what a hassle it is to deal with a person who is constantly distracted and is constantly fidgety and antsy. In the school system, this is mainly due to the fact that the learning style is backwards. According to James L. West, the President of Total Life Counseling Center, “Stanford did a study that showed the learning style of the average person as follows: 89% Visual, 10% Auditory & 1% the remaining 3 sense,” and the primary learning style in the school system today is almost 90% auditory. Doesn’t make any sense does it? Our school systems would be the first place to change if people were to accept the fact that these are not disorders but are in fact the way all of our brains will soon be wired.
If the world became more accepting to these ideas and allowed children to learn in a more visual and hands on environment (one that is more suited towards children with ADD/ADHD), then maybe the sale of prescription drugs like Ritalin and Adderall will decrease; which would also decrease the number of abusers in the United States. If the upcoming generation continues on this path, then pretty soon a vast majority of the population will have been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD. This could be a sign that the world we are living in is re-wiring our brains to be more responsive to the environment that we have created around us; the virtual reality of the internet. Like what Marc Prensky says in his article about the new generation, “Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.” Digital Natives (DN), as Prensky calls our generation, are people who are completely fluent in the language of computers, video games, and the internet. The reason for diseases like ADD/ADHD to be ‘diagnosed’ in the United States: Digital Immigrants (DI). DI’s are blocking the path of DN to learn in an environment that is right for them. Just like any change in society in the past, this ‘new brain’ that children are representing, is just being diagnosed as a disorder and cast to the side of society as a learning disability. In the past, the new generations would change their clothing style, music choice, and lingo just to be different and more ‘hip’ than the older generation; however, not only are we changing all of those things, we are also changing our brain wave patterns by being completely immersed in a digital world that is over stimulating our bodies so much that we are constantly ‘letting ourselves go’ just to get a rise out of the world around us.
It is hard to say whether or not the internet is directly responsible for ADD/ADHD, but it has been proven that the rise of the internet and the rise of these disorders are linked. I believe that it is time for our entirely auditory based teaching structure should be changed to a more visual learning environment, not only to help those with ADD/ADHD but also to help everyone else, since we all learn truly better visually. Through my research, I have noticed that it may not be a bad thing that our minds are being restructured this way. If the world continues to grow off of the internet, then the way we receive information will continue on the same path it is now, towards a unified central intelligence of the world. A time when everyone can share the same knowledge instantly and we all can be instantly gratified through the internet or in real life itself. If the populace of ADD/ADHD people grows large enough, then maybe the world will notice the change that this current environment is having on our brains. If we all recognize this new change in society, then we can all change the way we teach our children, and eventually we will all be learning faster and retaining information longer. Maybe sometime in the future, these ‘disorders’ that scientist and doctors are diagnosing people with, will actually be a more precise brain and more functional than the brains that we have right now. Evolution is always viewed upon as ‘different’ or a ‘bad thing,’ until it is proven that the new change is actually better than before.
Works Cited
Bailey, Eileen. “ADD/ADHD Statistics.” ADHDCentral.com, Sunday, September 16, 2007. http://www.healthcentral.com/adhd/c/1443/13716/addadhd-statistics/
Elias, Marilyn. “Short Attention span linked to TV.” USA TODAY (online) 4/5/2004. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-04-05-tv-bottomstrip_x.htm
Elias, Marilyn. “Frequent TV watching shortens kids’ attention spans.” USA Today (online). 4/5/2004. http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-04-05-tv-kids-attention-usat_x.htm
Gilbert, Katie. “The Internet: Tutor or Troublemaker?” Psychology Today Online, 6 October 2006. http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20061006-000001.html
Prensky, Marc. “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.” On the Horizon (NCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001) © 2001
http://www.twitchspeed.com/site/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.htm
Schwartz, Ephraim. “Dumbing down and Smartening up via the web.” InfoWorld, May 29, 2007. http://weblog.infoworld.com/realitycheck/archives/2007/05/dumbing_down_an.html
Disorders or evolutionary responses?
Matt Vera
The teaching system of today is based almost entirely on an auditory learner. It has been proven that the general populace of people learn better visually rather than anything else. Even more so are people with ADD/ADHD, for these people visual and hands on learning is truly the best way, which is why the internet is such an amazing feeing ground for these people. I think it’s time we change our teaching system to fit these ‘disorders,’ considering that they are on such a rise that soon we will have an entire generation of children who are diagnosed with these ‘disorders.’ Instead of viewing them as disorders, we should see this as an evolutionary step in our human genome.
In the past and today, people with Attention Deficit Disorder (A.D.D.) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (A.D.H.D.) have been out-cast by society as being different and slow to learn. Now, with the coming of television and even more prevalent, the internet; people with these disorders may actually be an evolutionary response to the changing technology. Instead of shunning people with these disorders, maybe it is time to change the social norm and face the fact that due to the media of today and the way that information is retained; faster is better. Instead of placing children with these abilities in separate classrooms or giving them extra attention, we should change our teaching methods to fit a society that is rapidly learning to digest information on a massive scale very quickly. Imagine a world much like The Matrix, where any type of information is available by plugging your brain into the network.
It has not been extensively researched, but thus far studies on children and adolescents have shown that the media’s influence is shortening attention spans. A study by Dimitri Christakis reports that, “Frequent TV viewers in early childhood were most likely to score in the highest 10% for concentration problems, impulsiveness and restlessness.” Even though the majority of all these studies are based on television as the main form of medium, the internet is no different in the speediness of its communication. Though, it has been noticed by the educational community that these disorders have been becoming more and more frequent over the years. According to Eileen Bailey, “boys are diagnosed with ADD/ADHD 3 times more often than girls,” this would make sense since the general populace of boys spends more time online and playing video games than girls. Within the past decade there has been a noticeable spike in these disorders, the sales of Ritalin and Adderall will coincide with these findings. As Susan Greenfield said in her article entitled Modern technology is changing the way our brains work, "Throw in circumstantial evidence that links a sharp rise in diagnoses of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and the associated three-fold increase in Ritalin prescriptions over the past ten years with the boom in computer games and you have an immensely worrying scenario." It is not just the attention span of children and adults that has been affected by the internet, but also their activity in and out of social life.
ADHD is on the same rise as ADD and both are increasing at an alarming rate. “Some 4 to 5 percent of children have ADHD and 60 percent of these children carry symptoms well into adulthood” (Ma). This relatively large spike of disorders in the population could only be attributed to the overstimulation of our brains caused by the media input we receive. Due to the incredible speed at which the internet can receive any amount or kind of information that we want, it is no wonder that children are losing their attention to things that take a long time, like reading a book. Not only are they losing their attention span, but their behavior is out of control as well. The fact that the internet can constantly please users by showing them exactly what they want to see when they want to see it causes children to constantly want attention and constantly be over stimulated with information and/or useless information. This over stimulation of the brain causes children to be constantly on edge looking for things all the time to excite them or make them laugh. As Greenfield puts it, “[…]'pure' pleasure - that is to say, activity during which you truly 'let yourself go'” is causing children to feel that they are always in a state of ‘pure’ pleasure and must constantly pursue it. "We could be raising a hedonistic generation who live only in the thrill of the computer-generated moment, and are in distinct danger of detaching themselves from what the rest of us would consider the real world" (Greenfield). However ‘new’ these symptoms may seem, some of the greater minds of this world have been said to have shown signs of ADHD; though I feel that these diagnoses are after the fact that men like Einstein, Lennon, or Beethoven died. (Ma)
It is also shown that these disorders may not necessarily be a bad thing. Some have said that these are actually responses due to the stimulation of our brains. A case study done at Harvard Medical School showed that people that had 5 days of intensive piano training had similar brain activity and growth as another group who merely sat in a room and imagined playing the piano for 5 days. So these diseases are not only hereditary as some have thought but actually respond to the environment that surrounds us. There is no doubt in any mind that the over stimulation of our brains due to the speed of the flow of information to us is changing our minds and our bodies; it is whether these changes are good or bad that scientist have yet to decide. Some say that instead of viewing this negatively, we should restructure our teaching system to fit the needs of this growing responsive system in our population. Instead, we should teach these methods as if they are adaptations to our ever changing ‘norm’ in society. As Stuart Fischoff is quoted for saying, "These kids could be expressing 'the new brain.' They could be an advance guard that suggests we may need new ways of teaching children exposed to a lot of media stimulation. Brains may be changing, and we don't know if it's going to be bad or not." It is the fault of our non changing attitudes that people have been made to suffer over the past centuries. Whenever a new phase of social structure runs through society it is always met with such resistance that those who do take the initiative are usually shunned for doing so. However, in the case of people diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, they do not have a choice. If one has ever dealt with a person who has ADHD, that person would know what a hassle it is to deal with a person who is constantly distracted and is constantly fidgety and antsy. In the school system, this is mainly due to the fact that the learning style is backwards. According to James L. West, the President of Total Life Counseling Center, “Stanford did a study that showed the learning style of the average person as follows: 89% Visual, 10% Auditory & 1% the remaining 3 sense,” and the primary learning style in the school system today is almost 90% auditory. Doesn’t make any sense does it? Our school systems would be the first place to change if people were to accept the fact that these are not disorders but are in fact the way all of our brains will soon be wired.
If the world became more accepting to these ideas and allowed children to learn in a more visual and hands on environment (one that is more suited towards children with ADD/ADHD), then maybe the sale of prescription drugs like Ritalin and Adderall will decrease; which would also decrease the number of abusers in the United States. If the upcoming generation continues on this path, then pretty soon a vast majority of the population will have been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD. This could be a sign that the world we are living in is re-wiring our brains to be more responsive to the environment that we have created around us; the virtual reality of the internet. Like what Marc Prensky says in his article about the new generation, “Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.” Digital Natives (DN), as Prensky calls our generation, are people who are completely fluent in the language of computers, video games, and the internet. The reason for diseases like ADD/ADHD to be ‘diagnosed’ in the United States: Digital Immigrants (DI). DI’s are blocking the path of DN to learn in an environment that is right for them. Just like any change in society in the past, this ‘new brain’ that children are representing, is just being diagnosed as a disorder and cast to the side of society as a learning disability. In the past, the new generations would change their clothing style, music choice, and lingo just to be different and more ‘hip’ than the older generation; however, not only are we changing all of those things, we are also changing our brain wave patterns by being completely immersed in a digital world that is over stimulating our bodies so much that we are constantly ‘letting ourselves go’ just to get a rise out of the world around us.
It is hard to say whether or not the internet is directly responsible for ADD/ADHD, but it has been proven that the rise of the internet and the rise of these disorders are linked. I believe that it is time for our entirely auditory based teaching structure should be changed to a more visual learning environment, not only to help those with ADD/ADHD but also to help everyone else, since we all learn truly better visually. Through my research, I have noticed that it may not be a bad thing that our minds are being restructured this way. If the world continues to grow off of the internet, then the way we receive information will continue on the same path it is now, towards a unified central intelligence of the world. A time when everyone can share the same knowledge instantly and we all can be instantly gratified through the internet or in real life itself. If the populace of ADD/ADHD people grows large enough, then maybe the world will notice the change that this current environment is having on our brains. If we all recognize this new change in society, then we can all change the way we teach our children, and eventually we will all be learning faster and retaining information longer. Maybe sometime in the future, these ‘disorders’ that scientist and doctors are diagnosing people with, will actually be a more precise brain and more functional than the brains that we have right now. Evolution is always viewed upon as ‘different’ or a ‘bad thing,’ until it is proven that the new change is actually better than before.
Works Cited
Bailey, Eileen. “ADD/ADHD Statistics.” ADHDCentral.com, Sunday, September 16, 2007. http://www.healthcentral.com/adhd/c/1443/13716/addadhd-statistics/
Elias, Marilyn. “Short Attention span linked to TV.” USA TODAY (online) 4/5/2004. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-04-05-tv-bottomstrip_x.htm
Elias, Marilyn. “Frequent TV watching shortens kids’ attention spans.” USA Today (online). 4/5/2004. http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-04-05-tv-kids-attention-usat_x.htm
Gilbert, Katie. “The Internet: Tutor or Troublemaker?” Psychology Today Online, 6 October 2006. http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20061006-000001.html
Prensky, Marc. “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.” On the Horizon (NCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001) © 2001
http://www.twitchspeed.com/site/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.htm
Schwartz, Ephraim. “Dumbing down and Smartening up via the web.” InfoWorld, May 29, 2007. http://weblog.infoworld.com/realitycheck/archives/2007/05/dumbing_down_an.html
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