ADD vs ASDs and the future of the species

I've been thinking about this recently, especially after reading some science magazine article in which autism is hypothesized as the result of an over-sensitive mind, not a crippled one, which is much in line with fairly recent conclusions regarding ADD, e.g. it's not an attention deficit, it's an attention surplus, which when left unused winds up as a sort of doubling down on the idle hands -> devil aphorism. It takes one to know one and I am.

We've been developing literacy for in between two to five thousand years, to the point where we now expect every adult (or child over seven/eight years of age, frankly) to be able to read. Being able to read exposes a person to literally (ha ha!) billions of pieces of encoded information, where before the same size brain was simply required to look and see and maybe (once in a while) count. That's a big difference; even if we discount the volume of information presented, assuming, for instance, that the OG Wa-Tho-Huk was acutely sensitive to the angle on a hair or leaf or the timbre of the wind and could recognize a significant meaning in each of these things, that information is discrete, specific to the time it is processed; language, and specifically the written flavor (or the read flavor, actually) requires not only significant processing but storage and ready referral far beyond eidetic replay.

Oof.

I'm rambling and I'll get back to all that later. What I'm really asking: Are attention "deficit" disorder and autistic spectrum disorders a response to overwhelming volumes of discrete symbolic information, and therefore a clearly identifiable evolutionary step? Are they at least symptomatic of such a change? And are they 1. mutually exclusive and/or 2. associated with genotype success? Recent "epidemics" of both conditions seem to argue yes to 1 and 2.

I'm leaving out for now the tinfoil wives' tale of american shrinks being glorified drug dealers, and I'd appreciate responders to do as well.

basically folks we have only recently entered the age where lots of bookworms be makin mad money and fuckin' together and I am interested in what this means for Shinzō Ningen

ADD, e.g. it's not an attention deficit, it's an attention surplus

i've thought this for a while. for me, ADD means having to pay much greater attention to things other non-afflicted people take for granted. there was a girl in my grad program who would always chat on AIM during classes, and she managed to be a good student. i really envied her, because i was hanging on every word. the slightest outside stimulus can throw me off.

btw my bro is autistic so there may be some genetic connection

to some degree I think this may be also one of those things where a Baldwin effect creates a side effect that is negative:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_effect

sickle cell is the best example I know of - I might call it "over-engineering," and it's all mendelian and perfect, one gives you improved resistance to malaria, two gives you fucked up hemo and you die young.

Some have looked at male homosexuality and found that the female members of gay men's families tend to be superfecund, you know, makin mad healthy babies all day and whatnot, which sounds a lot like a sickle cell advantage to me. So in the modern world, does my parents' & grandparents' affinity for learning quick and reading lots improve their genetic viability enough to offset the fact that I would rather spend the prime of my life collecting records and staring at computers than forcing a succession of unhappy women to pump out one baby after another like some of my contemporaries? Success strategies are as incomprehensible as they are varied, I guess.

what it means for the future of the species? if subsequent generations have more ADD/ASD children, people may grow increasingly isolated from one another, spending more time in their own heads and less time interacting with peers and being fully "present" in certain situations.

Your college experience could be down to different learning styles though.

I get almost nothing out of most presentations and find lectures ludicrously inefficient as a way of transmitting information. Just give it to me in bulletpoints on two sides of A4, with supporting information in annexes as necessary.

Back to the Baldwin thing, there's piece in New Scientist from a little bit back about how insulating a species from strict pressures allows for loony-tunes fruity-tooty exceptionalism to develop (birdsongs as an example) so it's likely that effect could be happening as well.

ok those two xposts in context all about making the point for me word

people may grow increasingly isolated from one another, spending more time in their own heads and less time interacting with peers and being fully "present" in certain situations.

I get almost nothing out of most presentations and find lectures ludicrously inefficient as a way of transmitting information. Just give it to me in bulletpoints on two sides of A4, with supporting information in annexes as necessary.

On the Baldwin effect, if selected offspring manage to be able to process a lot more symbolic information efficiently, will we'll see the evolution of some PKD style 'pre-cogs'?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_type

holistic detectives, every one

if you were really crazy like me, you could even argue that greenspan's inability to affect the bubbles he fucked up was a product not so much of his nurture but his nature, he simply was never built to SEE like WE CAN SEE

(btw I am drinking and listening to music that hongro would despise right now)

% of people on ILX w/ ADD = ??

autism is hypothesized as the result of an over-sensitive mind, not a crippled one

Those aren't mutually exclusive, too much attention can be crippling. Which is exactly the point with ADD for some people. I don't see autism as a result of generally increased mental sensitivity, though, more as a matter of different mental focus in a qualitative sense, which comes with a lack of some capacities as well as (sometimes) addition to others.

They could still be genetic developments related to skills in symbolic processing, but it seems more likely to me they'd be unexpected side effects rather than direct and identifiable progressions. Also, volume of symbolic information around shouldn't be that much of a determinant of success, given that most people ignore almost all of it most of the time.

xpost (i have no add or autism, but i have one sibling with each!)

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/OL-SixthFinger15.jpghttp://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/OL-SixthFinger19.jpghttp://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/OL-SixthFinger1.jpg

tom i will ask for a grant to look into this, k?

Those aren't mutually exclusive, too much attention can be crippling.

Exactly. I was about to mention this. If you can't "shut off" (or focus on one thing for a longer time), then you have a problem. That said, I have been thinking about this a lot. (In regard to my own "panic attacks" and also my own, and friends', kids.) How much does a label affect your viewpoint of the labeled person. I have a friend who's convinced her kiddo has ADD. I stressed that 1 the kid's still a baby so it's too hard to diagnose ADD at this stage and 2 how much will the label affect her attitude towards her child. Sometimes it's better not to label.

We've been developing literacy for in between two to five thousand years, to the point where we now expect every adult (or child over seven/eight years of age, frankly) to be able to read.

We don't expect it. But we do want our kids to function in this society so you kinda need literacy if you want to tag along. (I know that's not what you wanted to address...)

Aren't people with autism overly sensitive to sound, sight and whatnot? I seem to remember this is the case. This is one of the things that parents notice at first.

I'm leaving out for now the tinfoil wives' tale of american shrinks being glorified drug dealer

There was some lame special on telly the other day. They sent a bloke with a HIDDEN CAMERA (oh NOES! a HIDDEN CAMERA! the recorded film MUST be the god's honest TRUTH!) to a few docs. Started saying he was depressed, divorced, wanted to commit suicide, BLABLABLA. All docs prescribed him drugs. OH NOES! The man has suicide tendencies and they prescribe him DRUGS! Those EVIL EVIL men. WTF. What should they have done (short term wise)? Slap him on the back and say: "Things can only get better mate, go grab a pint."

that's the kind of thing that shows absolutely nothing in itself, what's really important is your own preconceived ideas!

Are ADD and ASD both more prevelent in males than females?

Uniintelligent houseflies are better adapted than intelligent houseflies.

NB: humans ain't at all houseflies.

And re: autism spectrum, Fragile X Syndrome has the coolest name of all of them, and maybe people should read about it?

I'm too manic to even think, ayeayeayeayeayeayeaye.

Are attention "deficit" disorder and autistic spectrum disorders a response to overwhelming volumes of discrete symbolic information, and therefore a clearly identifiable evolutionary step?

I think innate ADD/autism-like brain patterns are more likely to be develop under the sheer immediacy & breadth & compulsiveness of the wikinformation age, but I don't think it's so much of a strain on reproduction that it would cause any significant change in the human gene pool. So not evolutionary in the genetic sense (evolutionary/adaptive culturally certainly).

But of course in Silicon Valley, where there were/are a lot of aspies living and working together in an economically strong community & marrying each other & having aspie kids, that I'd say is some pretty rapid evolutionary adaptation.

i understand ADD is really common among cops

I work Special Ed and ADD as used and diagnosed is a really dubious term imo - you get kids with 'pure' ADD but it is actually comparatively rare, much rarer than for say dyslexia, let alone, like, measles. A lot of the diagnoses we deal with (not all by any means) are basically psychs saying "yes, i agree, this kid often behaves inappropriately in a classroom setting, but i don't know why. Here is the badge, for that."

Are ADD and ASD both more prevelent in males than females?

Both are much more often-diagnosed in males than females. I am fairly confident that asd is also more prevalent in males, ADD I don't know.

i understand ADD is really common among cops

this makes sense - I assume any high-stress occupation is going to have a higher percentage of thrill-seeking ADDers amonst their population.

though there is a chicken or egg component here. people who spend all day going into stressful situations, does an ADD condition cause them to gravitate towards that work or does the occupation start affecting their personality?

i understand ADD is really common among cops

I would imagine a lot of jobs with high stimulation levels and a varied workday would attract ADD candidates?? xp

does an ADD condition cause them to gravitate towards that work

I might argue yes, if only because it's one of the few situations where an ADD adult can really excel beyond their peers. I'm a multitasker par excellence when there's tons of intense shit coming down. On slow quiet days I get nothing done.

Well, someone I know only realized he had ADD in adulthood, which explained FINALLY why his office job was killing him and why he couldn't ever get a handle on it. Eventually he went into something where he visits different sites all day, is outdoors and on the move, and interacting intensely with lots of kid and adults. It's not thrill-seeking at all, but it's high-stimulation and physically active.

I don't think I actually have any real symptoms of ADD tho my brother has many, but I agree on this: boredom is the quickest route to my life completely self-destructing. Once my mind has disengaged, my work ethic, decision-making, everything goes out the window while I search for stimulation.

I would really like a job like that, Laurel! What is the field? (xpost)

I don't want to be any more specific on the innernets, actually, but I'll email you. :)

drug dealer

(not the APA kind)

contract killer would be awesomer

or spider-man.

NOT THRILL-SEEKING
NOT THRILL-SEEKING
NOT THRILL-SEEKING
NOT THRILL-SEEKING
NOT THRILL-SEEKING
NOT THRILL-SEEKING
NOT THRILL-SEEKING
NOT THRILL-SEEKING
NOT THRILL-SEEKING
NOT THRILL-SEEKING
NOT THRILL-SEEKING
NOT THRILL-SEEKING
NOT THRILL-SEEKING
NOT THRILL-SEEKING

they all say that.

spiderman doesn't seek thrills, it's just his goddamn spidey sense is always going off

field salespeople = lotsa ADD

i also want that job, Laurel

I might argue yes, if only because it's one of the few situations where an ADD adult can really excel beyond their peers. I'm a multitasker par excellence when there's tons of intense shit coming down. On slow quiet days I get nothing done.

― TOMBOT, Friday, October 24, 2008 12:35 PM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is so fucking true for me. according to those online questionnaires or whatever, i'm NOT ADD, but it sure feels like it sometimes. i either need one very involving task, or some kind of multivariate complex of related tasks to stay focused. tho i guess those are the same thing, really.

i think this is why cooking is one of my favorite things in the world to do.

gbx you have basically already had that job!!

this is so fucking true for me. according to those online questionnaires or whatever, i'm NOT ADD

lol dr google

I have a kid on my bus who is a really nice kid who is always super-active and restless, but the other morning he was almost jumping out of his skin. Even his eyes were jumpy and jerky. He was flicking his hands around a lot. Even hitting himself.

I had a brief talk with him before he got off the bus about his behavior and he said he'd forgot to take his pill that morning. When I asked him if it helped, he said, "a little". I can't see increased ADD as a beneficial development, no matter how multi-taked society becomes.

two points there, 1) there is a spectrum of ADD sufferers, not every one is jumping out of their skin, 2) physical ADD symptoms tend to decline as people age

that's why doctors used to say "ADD goes away as people reach adulthood", but now they differentiate between adult ADD and non-adult ADD.

when I was in college I took the ADD test where you stare at a screen and a box appears intermittently, and if it's in one position you do nothing, and if it's in the other you press a button. The first time I took it I wound up invalidating my own results by over-anticipating the appearance of the box. The second time I took it I scored "hyper-normal" - presumably that is like "superbad?" - and they decided to go with that result. So it was basically "your ADD broke the meter. You're just a regular guy!"

I was just diagnosed a few years ago (after a few years of suspecting as much). I was on Ritalin for a little over a year and it did wonders, to the extent that I mistakenly thought I was sorted and went off the meds and the therapy for a year. I hopped back on the wagon last year, but found that the Ritalin wasn't doing a thing for me anymore. If I ever manage to get my shit together and see a doctor again, I'll give something else a shot.

I function fine day-to-day, generally speaking. The most profound thing I got out of the medication was the ability to strategize (strategy being something I only had an academic understanding of before). That ability to plan bits of my life out several steps in advance was astounding to me. It's admittedly a little frustrating to be stuck back in that 'one move at a time' headspace.

Oh, and that article is absolutely correct: ADD has saddled me with all kinds of guilt and stress and depression that exist as a direct result of these stupid stumbling blocks. I'm glad, at least, that I'm cognizant of those things as symptoms of a larger problem and not the problem in and of themselves. And it is difficult to talk about (still haven't ever discussed it with anyone in my family), and it does make me feel like a jerk sometimes (like when I realize that I've got a decent brain otherwise and I feel like a whiner in a world full of people with much bigger problems). It always feels nice to know that there are others in the same boat.

Ha. you already responded for me:

talk to me after you've spent twelve hours completing crossword puzzles.

with

most of the headlines i see discourage this but has anyone tried treating their ADD with videogames?

Yes, the answer is:

http://www.gamershell.com/static/boxart/large/uk/9258.jpg

http://www.gamershell.com/static/boxart/large/uk/9402.jpg

http://www.hiphopgamershow.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/kotor_cover.jpg

http://www.thatvideogameblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/mass-effect-2-box-art.jpg

Starcraft ][ is downloading as we speak.

You're talking to the guy who started I LOVE GAMES, even

Video games encourage me to play obsessive compulsively. For instance, in modern day RPGs you are rewarded for picking up every little thing and selling it (this is time consuming but it's like seeing money on the ground that I can't just leave there). I also tend to play all the modern RPG games like a power gamer seeking the perfect build for my character/s which often requires tedious tasks like saving and reloading to play through different dialog options to see which will boost approval points the most. I could go on and on about how video games turned me into an obsessive compulsive gamer. Maybe some folks with succeptible personalities take on traits that are like their gameplay style - being extra cautious, OCD or whatever

Yeah, the games that suck me in the most either have the deepest immersive narrative qualities(western rpgs like anything Bioware does, Witcher, Fallout, or even San Andreas) or let me run a system(Tropico, Civ 4, AOE3, Napoleon: Total War)

yeah it's interesting how usually the media portrays games are part of the whole quick cut/schizophrenic/twitter/add modern society thing but in many ways they are the total opposite

let me also say that i'm happy this thread exists. ADD is difficult to talk about with non-sufferers, such as my extraordinarily productive friends. it seems that it's hard for them to view it as anything other than a character flaw (which, in some sense, it is.)

― LA river flood (lukas), Thursday, 29 July 2010 19:26 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

is ADD unproductiveness and muddle-mindedness then? Of the long list above, I could tick off an awful lot, do I have ADD?

Once when I was feeling low and unmotivated, and after reading too many websites instead of working ( "easily distracted"!) I went to the doctor... with printout.... his advice was good in retrospect : "I could book you in with the psychiatrist if you like, but you'd be better off doing more exercise, eating well, and pulling yourself together, this is what life is about." I still feel low and unmotivated, but more convinced that that's me, and I'd be someone else if it wasn't the case. don't really want to be someone else.

( really hope this doesn't come across as belittling your illness, not intended that way at all, just that there are lots of positive/negative/neutral character traits that get medicated and diagnosed just because they don't fit some ideal of capitalist/ western/ whatever psychology.)</challops sorry>

Your doctor gave you some good advice, but telling you to simply 'pull yourself together' is pretty shitty and unprofessional. Some people may just be lazy and happy to wallow in their misery, but a lot more people would actually like to improve their lives, and if they knew how to 'pull themselves together', they would've fucking done it already. Sheesh.

yeah it's interesting how usually the media portrays games are part of the whole quick cut/schizophrenic/twitter/add modern society thing but in many ways they are the total opposite

Well yeah, it takes a full generation or so to change course on media narratives & stereotypes, doesn't it? We've talked about this on ILG, too, that , numerically speaking, video games are primarily played by office ladies and have been for like 5 years.

no offense, but that's the attitude that make me never want to tell anyone i have ADD.

my understanding of the difference is this: exercise and other forms of self-help will only do ADDers so much good. if you actually don't have ADD, enough motivation and the right life adjustments would allow you to be consistently focused and productive.

if you do have ADD, "exercise, eating well, and pulling yourself together" won't do the trick alone. they will help and are certainly worthwhile, but the symptoms are still there to a frustrating, even demoralizing extent. i eat very healthily, am in the best shape of my life, and i'm constantly trying to engineer my life for better productivity. and still ...

iiuc, the solution is either to structure your life in a way that your inattentiveness isn't salient (eg, for some people, real-time interactions with humans keep them interested, so they can be successful as salesmen or whatever) or to take medication, or a combination of the two.

xposts

no offence taken, and I didn't intend to come across as offensive either. I don't understand the concept of being "consistently focused and productive" and my fucking god I'd be depressed if I allowed myself to think that other people can do that without a massively exhausting mental struggle but still I don't think the solution is to find solutions, but to not worry about my failings and cherish and develop the things I'm strong at. and, in this short life, accept that failure in some/many areas is fine.

wait.on the other hand, MAIL ME YOUR WONDER DRUGS THEY SOUND ACE!

ADHD/ADD is not behavior based hyperactivity and skittishness (though that is how it looks, and often how it manifests), but rather a set of partially-understood underlying neurological conditions in the frontal lobes/limbic system/reticular activating system that, by any of a number of processes, make inhibitory action more difficult than they are in an average (non ADD/ADHD) person.

I suspect this lack of inhibition is a survival advantage in hypervigilant tribal warfare situations (hence maybe the dominance of warfare games listed above)?
maybe you (us?) ADD dudes were born too late. would've been the top sniper/hunters during medieval times.
just makin' leaps.

Part of it comes from the fact that we still have massive stigmas around this stuff, since any sort of mental otherness is completely misunderstood.

I'm about to get really abstract and this is full-on stream-of-conscious and not all that well constructed but here goes:

It's something about how most people think that their mind is completely separate from their brain, Everything that happens in your mind is completely controlled by you with no subconscious, neurological, or biological underpinnings.

Mix the Enlightenment idea of the mind with the weird Romantic/hippie-leftover mindset that we shouldn't need drugs at all, that all "drugs" are unnatural and thus bad, that our brains are all fine if we just "snap out of it".

This weird sluice of chemicals and pathways and circuitry that we have lodged inside this calcium deposit of a cranium controls how we think. If the neurochem production is off or badly EQ'd or whatever, involuntary behaviour can result. You get depressed, anxious, ADD traits, or a thousand other symptoms.

Modern society is constructed in certain ways and works with how the vast majority of people's brains process. Thom Hartmann has written about this, about how the ADD mind works perfectly well in different circumstances other than the ones we experience daily that cause us the issues.

There is shit we can do to offset these symptoms(exercise et al), but there is still a fundamental difference in how we process things. Meds and therapy can help that.

Hell, I'm of the opinion that every single person on the planet would benefit from talking to a pshrink, therapist, analyst or whatever; someone trained to help you process the stuff you encounter on a daily basis.

Right then, I hope some of that made sense or was applicable.

maybe you (us?) ADD dudes were born too late. would've been the top sniper/hunters during medieval times.
just makin' leaps.

Yup, exactly. Thom Hartmann wrote an entire book positing this:

http://www.amazon.com/Attention-Deficit-Disorder-Different-Perception/dp/1887424148/

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51V5DB68HFL.jpg

Thing is tom GPs are generally not great at addressing potential neurodiversity, (or mental health problems for that matter). I tend to think there's more to all of this stuff than an impairment that will ever be fully identified and treatable - in terms of its impact on people who experience it. But there are a lot of people who very much would like neurodiverse conditions to be purely medical or purely social. Think this is an unhelpful way of thinking about them.

If the neurochem production is off or badly EQ'd or whatever, involuntary behaviour can result.

And of course there's a strong argument that all behaviour is involuntary, in some sense.

ADD dudes were born too late. would've been the top sniper/hunters during medieval times.
just makin' leaps.

is kind of an interesting point. however, the inhibitory controls/impulse-delaying-abilities suffer globally in a lot of ADHD cases – and not just in 'boring' or 'academic' or 'civilized' scenarios. it's easy to conjecture that ADHD-types throughout history were at at much higher risk for accident/poisonous berry eating/bear-poking injury than their more focussed colleagues, and had a far shorter life expectancy.

on the other hand, the same lack of impulse-denying might have assured that they would procreate at a higher rate than their more sober peers.

run around, screw a cavewoman, molest a saber-toothed tiger, die

And of course there's a strong argument that all behaviour is involuntary, in some sense.

― flashing drill + penis fan (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 29 July 2010 20:25 (19 seconds ago) Bookmark

^^ I do tend to believe this, I'm just here to enjoy the ride, and give the riders around me a helping hand. I'll shut up now, have talked to much and am slightly embarrassed.

run around, screw a cavewoman, molest a saber-toothed tiger, die

― Eggs, Peaches, Hot Dogs, Lamb (remy bean), Thursday, 29 July 2010 20:26 (38 seconds ago) Bookmark

YES!!!

I'm definitely noticing a major difference in my attentiveness and ability to Get Shit Done at work after being off the meds for a couple of weeks (for example, I'm posting here).

One thing I find hard to deal with is that I seem to need _what I'm doing_ to be a distraction. For instance, I have the hardest time reading now, but when I was in junior high and high school I had no trouble plowing through the biggest, densest books I could get my hands on (your Pynchons & DFWs and what have you) in part because I was supposed to be doing something else. Likewise at work I have major difficulties staying on task and, for instance, calling up a list of delinquent accounts (even though the task is already broken down into steps for my by virtue of its being a simple LIST) but I can happily suck up the entire Lacan and Zizek wikipedia entries, compile a neat little list of books to check out of the library, and proceed to never follow up on it because OH HEY NOW IT'S TIME FOR (Ghost Box/William Klein movies/Oulipo/modern fashion design/some other shit) that I never get more than a dilettante's understanding of because ZOOM off to something else. And this is with medication; Vyvanse is the bst I've dealt with so far but it only really helps me with work and other tasks with some external direction. When it comes to doing my own thing it's still an utter mess.

And video games, Christ, don't get me started. WOW was a huge mistake... Visual stimulus + easily accomplished, clearly defined goals with immediate rewards + manageable, anonymous, low pressure social contact = CRACK.

^^^ this is normal, though isn't it? some people just do a better job of suppressing it, don't they?

what's the mechanism for "doing a better job" tho? Any model of human behaviour based on willpower leaves you with a bunch of questions about what it is and how anybody can increase it thru their own efforts.

i.e. the fact that some people are better at not doing things that are personally or socially destructive doesn't tell us much about why they are better at it.

i blame my parents

I think there's a fair amount of evidence that the main thing you can blame your parents for is your genes, really.

(unless you're adopted)

i meant parents in the biological sense but yeah

what's the mechanism for "doing a better job" tho? Any model of human behaviour based on willpower leaves you with a bunch of questions about what it is and how anybody can increase it thru their own efforts.

― flashing drill + penis fan (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 29 July 2010 21:14 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

crikey, I dunno. I'm just trying to fathom out whether this is "a thing" at all, or if I'm just well practised at getting away with being lazy. and other ppls mileage varies, I'm sure.

How normal is it to be with a group of people having a conservation and barely focusing on them but rather focusing on reading and posting on ILX via your phone?

Some people can just listen and join in on the conversation and be content. Some people have to be on their phone or doing something else besides just being there at the conversation. I think that is what ADD is. Technology has in some way made people more ADD

a character flaw (which, in some sense, it is.) - yeah you're right. similarly, clinically depressed people just need to lighten up a little bit & get over it already.

jesus dude. seriously?

Well, I have trouble focusing as part of my basic makeup. It's not a moral failing, but wouldn't you call it a character flaw?

I'm just trying to fathom out whether this is "a thing" at all, or if I'm just well practised at getting away with being lazy.

I wasn't just interrogating you, I was thinking out loud.

If I was trying to prove that ADD/ADHD is "a thing" I would look at evidence that chemical or behavioural interventions can change the way that some people diagnosed with these conditions behave. I think that evidence exists.

I'd also wonder about whether a word like "lazy" is a description of observable behaviours that gives the impression of a solution to those behaviours buried in its connotations. So maybe you're lazy. Work out what that means to you, and whether that label helps, and go on from there.

noodle vague dropping ill science itt

There are exceptions to my scenario (needing to be on the phone during tons of conversations) and people have different levels of ADD but I just wanted to illustrate that ADD is real (I used to be bugged by a friend of mine in college who refused to believe in several mental illnesses)

need to spend time away from ILX, I'm talking bullshit and here isn't the forum for it. 'pologies.

but wouldn't you call it a character flaw? - "having trouble focusing" is one thing. Extreme, chronic distractibility & impulsivity is another. Either way, anything innately having to do your brain chemistry could hardly be described as a character flaw.

Also, as has been pointed out, exercise, diet & lifestyle conditions are key to combating both ADD & depression, but that does not mean that does not mean that such maladies are necessarily rooted in bad lifestyle choices. Sometimes, the right level of healthy living can itself keep the problems at bay & sometimes meds and/or counseling are essential as well. It just depends on the situation and the individual.

tom you provide useful levity

Extreme, chronic distractibility & impulsivity

right, which accurately describe me. i think my use of words in this thread could be improved on.

anything innately having to do your brain chemistry could hardly be described as a character flaw

see I don't think ADD can be neatly cut away, leaving my true personality intact. I suspect you don't either. anyway, don't we often use "character flaw" to describe non-volitional aspects of our personalities?

Some people can just listen and join in on the conversation and be content. Some people have to be on their phone or doing something else besides just being there at the conversation.

not sure if this has anything to do with ADD, but I find that I am much better (more tuned in) in 1-on-1 conversations than group discussions. i don't think it's just because it's ruder to play with my phone when i'm with one other person; i think the fact that the other person is paying constant attention to me focuses me.

can you suggest ban yourself? I've just been trying, but I lost count around halfway so I may or may not have got to 51.

Dude I don't think anybody's pissed off?

nah i mean i have struggled with the same questions tom. it's useful to have the naive commonsense pshawing represented here.

tom, you can't SB someone (whether yourself or not) just by pushing the SB button multiple times, it needs 51 different people to do it to get a temp ban.

How normal is it to be with a group of people having a conservation and barely focusing on them but rather focusing on reading and posting on ILX via your phone?

i'm always impressed by people who can pay attention to a conversation and their phone at the same time, i can't even have a conversation when a television is on in the background.

Interesting video pointing out that autism charities are behind the times in terms of avoiding pity-based advertising:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3DwCn6VeZY.

I just met this young film-maker's mom. Both his parents are academics with strong views on neurodiversity that colour their work in ways I'm not quite comfortable with, yet probably help 'balance' the field.

On the whole I am anti-pity and pro-compassion.

Ljubljana, are they for or against neurodiversity re autism?

Ive prob said before my closest friend's son is autistic but I wanted to post this little mother and son classic asd exchange from her blog:

After seeing me yell out after stubbing my toe:
Louis: "What?"
Me: "I hurt my toe, Louis"
Louis: "No you didn't, I am fine"

I mean seriously <3

Heh, that's pretty good.

They're deeply pro-neurodiversity, and I think it gives them a very useful alternative perspective on a lot of claims about information processing in autism - but I also think it leads them to dismiss some partially useful constructs *too* completely, because they haven't been described in the language of neurodiversity. The idea of autistic people 'lacking a theory of mind' for instance, is offensive to them. That language probably isn't helpful, it's true (and not just because it could be construed as offensive, but because of the confusion it can engender about what it really means). But, what has come to mean has evolved and become more complicated over time. It's not good, I think, to dismiss the huge range of ideas that 'theory of mind' currently covers as if they were one idea.