No one can deny that if we think of our lives ten years ago not a lot of people knew what ADHD was or what its symptoms are. Nowadays we have the ability not only to know about the symptoms but also to diagnose ourselves and to advice our therapist on how to proceed with us.
What do you think made us therapists of ourselves? Well, it is not a surprise that the answer to this question is the social media and the fact that all kind of information are just around the corner. Everyone has access to everything, which is amazingly helpful for gathering as much knowledge as possible, but who can garante that this information is correct? And since we can see a lot of different things on social media how exactly can we be sure that everything is important?
I will not confuse you with opening a lot of different topics since it will be ironic, so I will start with what ADHD is and how it is related to social media.
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder. Neurodevelopmental means that in most of the cases is diagnosed in childhood and it affects the neuronal activity of the brain. A lot of children are diagnosed with ADHD and there is a big discussion around the question: can adults outgrow ADHD or do the symptoms become better managed?
An adult with ADHD would start multiple tasks and leave them undone, and this will eventually cause a sense of disappointment since at the end of the day nothing is finished. Adults are not hyperactive per se but they tend to be more inattentive, they are restless, disorganised and often overwhelmed by their thought to organise tasks. It seems like adults outgrow the criteria and not the disorder (Barkley, 2029). According to diagnostic and statistical manual Number 5 the criteria for adult ADHD have changed (Rigler, Manor, Kalansky, Shorer, Noyman & Sdaka 2016).
It is now time to start discussing how (and if) ADHD can be influenced or induced by social media use. Social media give us the ability to watch a lot of different videos with a large amount of different information. We can watch a video of 40 seconds that is about a very healthy cake recipe and right after we wil watch a video of hungry children in the middle of a war, and right after a video of pranks and right after a video of political news of our country. As a result in 2 minutes we have watched four-five videos that are totally irrelevant with each other but we enjoyed it and we would like to continue doing that because not only we relax scrolling on our phone but also we are learning really fast things that we would never search. We appreciate taking quickly the information instead of searching for it and we are thankful for it but at the same time we are training our brain to receive info like this. This can have consequences on us when we try to receive info another way. Have you noticed what is happening when we have to read a very big article or watch a very large movie or read a book? How many people are distracted by it? How many people would prefer to watch a video about this very text instead of reading it and trying to maintain their attention? How many people lost a couple of time their attention while reading this text?
I bet that I would be also one of you, I would also prefer to watch a video with highlighted subs so that I can finish very quickly with it, take the information and not try really hard. Our brains are relaxing and are trained not to search for information and they are also trained to be distracted. Those symptoms are similar to some of the ADHD symptoms that adults have. Have you ever decided to watch a movie by yourself to relax? How many times have to touched your phone while watching the movie? Or maybe you were holding it the whole time playing games at the same time! People that spend a lot of time on social media are likely to experience ADHD symptoms. This has probably to do with the dopamine neurotransmitter in the brain but I will not boar you now with something so specific. Research suggests that ADHD is common among young people dealing with uncontrolled internet and problematic social media use (Pluhar, Kavanaugh, Levinson & Rich, 2019). It is still a topic that needs to be further investigated and discussed since it is quit new.
I know that some of you who managed to read this article are now tired but maybe you have also seen a lot of similar behaviours on you and you would like to see what you can do about it, especially if it affects you every day.
The most important thing is to set under control the use of social media. You can put your phone on another room on purpose and keep it there of a couple of hours while you are watching your movie or while you are reading a book or even while you are working.
You can also reduce spending time on the social media by blocking access to social apps through your phone for some hours or you can set time limits.
If social media is your means of communication with friends or family, just let them know that you will not always be available there and that you ll try to take some distance so you won't answer right away when they contact you.
Are you out with friends and you feel the need to have your phone on the table so that you can see when you are been contacted? Keep your phone inside your bag so that you are not distracted by it and this way you can pay full attention to the person in front of you.
Do not hesitate to seek professional help if you have tried a lot of these or other ways and they were not successful. And especially if your inability to focus somewhere has interfere with your everyday life.
Barkley, R. A. (2019). Myth: All Children Grow Out of ADHD.
Pluhar, E., Kavanaugh, J. R., Levinson, J. A., & Rich, M. (2019). Problematic interactive media use in teens: comorbidities, assessment, and treatment. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 447-455.
Rigler, T., Manor, I., Kalansky, A., Shorer, Z., Noyman, I., & Sadaka, Y. (2016). New DSM-5 criteria for ADHD—Does it matter?. Comprehensive psychiatry, 68, 56-59.