Teach42

From the “I should really blog about this when I have some time” vault:

CNet published an interesting article last week called Why can’t you pay attention anymore? Sounds like it might be about people with ADD, doesn’t it? Well, two out of three ain’t bad. This article actually describes a ‘new’ disorder called Attention Deficit Trait, or ADT.

Dr. Edward Hallowell, a psychiatrist who’s studied attention deficit disorder for more than a decade, has identified a related disorder he calls attention deficit trait, and he says it’s reaching epidemic proportions in the corporate world. Unlike attention deficit disorder, or ADD, people aren’t born with ADT. It’s the result, he contends, of the modern workplace, where the constant and relentless chatter coming from our computers, phones and other high-tech devices is diluting our mental powers.

It’s sort of like the normal version of attention deficit disorder. But it’s a condition induced by modern life, in which you’ve become so busy attending to so many inputs and outputs that you become increasingly distracted, irritable, impulsive, restless and, over the long term, underachieving. In other words, it costs you efficiency because you’re doing so much or trying to do so much, it’s as if you’re juggling one more ball than you possibly can.

It really is a fascinating article and makes a strong argument that environmental variables can create a condition in people that may seem very similar to ADD. Distractability, underachievment, restlesness can all be symptons.

I think that there could definitely be some truth to it, but I also think that it might be a bit of slapping a great nickname onto a timeless condition: burnout. Many of the examples he provides sound distinctly like good ol’ fashioned burnout but with a healthy dose of cyber-spin.

I’m glad that he does bring to light a very valuable point though; it’s entirely possible for a healthy child or adult to exhibit ADD-like symptons without being ADD.

So many people would come to me looking for a diagnosis of ADD, and I noticed some of them didn’t really have the condition because it went away completely when they went on vacation, or it went away completely when they went off to a relaxed setting.

In ADD–the true ADD–it doesn’t go away, wherever you go. So I realized that these people were having it induced by their work world. When they got to work, then symptoms would start to occur. So that meant that something was going on at work. That something is this overload.

He admits that he doesn’t have any formal research on the subject yet, but he speculates that as many as 40% of the white collar job community could be victims of ADT. That sounds seriously high to me, but depending on how you phrase the research questions, I would bet that he could come up with those numbers. It’s just like those ads you hear on the radio for mystery drugs. “Are you tired? Do you have feel depressed? Have you ever had a bad day? Then you need Mystery Drug X!”

The only thing missing from the article is how to combat ADT. My guess? Exercise, healthy diet, and remembering to unplug every once in a while. It’s amazing how many problems those three things can solve

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