Agreed. I'm definitely the "target" of this article, as I've just recently been diagnosed in my late 30s with adult ADHD. I feel like I've shown the signs during my childhood - poor grades due to poor attention span, constant fidgeting, and emotional irregularity due to hyperactivity and my impatience of others. Only recently have I thought to actually see anyone about it, as I've started seeing similar signs in my daughter.
Reading through the article, it definitely highlighted concerns I had about my process: lack of available providers (to the point that many wouldn't even accept a call from a new patient), essentially forced to use online services, relatively short discussions before treatment, and ultimately being prescribed stimulants.
Overall, I'm glad I started this process. I definitely feel better on the medication, to the point where I'm able to effectively track my daily tasking, keep cohesive notes, drastically reduce my unintended verbal interruptions of others, and churn work out without context switching so often. I obviously can work without the medication, but it's absolutely a night and day difference to me. Ultimately, I just hope that the progression of the adult ADHD diagnosis and discovery continues to mature, and online services aren't completely cut off from the space.
The testing kits may be the "best" - their data retention and security just sucks. I (stupidly) did 23andMe a while back, I've since requested my data to be deleted. Who knows if that's even honored.
I never trust that someone has deleted data. There is NO way of knowing that they did. Did they delete from the active database? What about clones of the data to DEV? What about back ups? I seriously doubt any company restores a back up to purge data only to make a new back up of that. If they did, do they purge the original back up and only use the new?
I don't care if something like GDPR states they must. I do not trust corps to actually go through the hassle/expense of it.
Completely agree, and I am continuously frustrated that the US has such poor personal privacy standards and regulations, regardless of how effective any existing regulations are.
That's what it is!
for months I had a trick for getting around paywalls and I just realized that that's all I'm really doing...
You learn new things every day, especially when starting out...
Thanks! I was basically inspecting the page and reloading with 'pause on caught and uncaught exceptions' but I think that all that did was pause some Javascript before it ran.
I'll second this, I can hardly recommend any subscription more than Kagi.
Despite the numbers, I'm always surprised when someone still uses G search... it's drowned in ads and exploitative results. Kagi lets you modify the weights of individual sites or even block them, so you can filter out blogspam and clickbait sites instantly. Best of all, it even has a leaderboard for most-blocked and most-promoted domains so you can literally just go down the list of some of the worst sites and block them before you ever see them in a search result.
I can second this. Although my queries per month are limited due to using free tier, they almost always get relevant results for technical questions. If Google keeps getting worse, I'll switch to Kagi's paid tier. The LLM demo they briefly made available a few months ago was also impressive.
kagi is great. It's overpriced, but if you are willing to pay the premium for unlmimited searches (you run out really quickly or aviod doing searches otherwise with the normal plan), it's really good
I don't know if it's overpriced, or if it is the sticker shock of _having to pay for search where almost everywhere else provides it for free_. I'd rather not pay, but I'd also rather pay and support something to get them to stick around long-term.
I definitely don't disagree, although I typically do about double that count (albeit on the lower range).
I'm not a fan of subscriptions, but a search engine is definitely something I can understand requiring a subscription fee. Something like my calendar app? Nope (had to drop... some app because they moved from a perpetual license to a subscription).
Yeah. I feel like any time this comes up on HN, the comments heavily skew towards moving _away_ from integrating technology into the dining process. I'm all for it. I don't want to do the whole song-and-dance of chatting with a server, I don't want to deal with them coming to the table mid-bite to ask if everything is OK. Just let me order via a QR code and table number. Hell, I'll even clean the table when I'm done.
This obviously does not apply to fine dining, only really fast casual/fast food.
I don't mind restaurants that have tablets on the table in place of paper menus. There is a sushi restaurant in my city that does this and I love it. This avoids the same problems you're talking about, with servers coming to check on you etc.
Where I have an issue is when the restaurants expects me to have my own device, to install their app, or even just jump through hoops (scanning a QR code) etc.
I'm not attached to my cell phone. I often like to leave it at home. And I'm sure as hell not going to install a restaurant's app on my device.
Another thing the tablet does better is just better UX. My phone screen is tiny and my old man eyes are poor. A tablet is often much easier to read and use.
I've only seen QR code -> PDF menu (and one where it was QR code -> web interface to order food/drinks). I agree with you re: app, but I think it's completely reasonable in 2023 to expect the general public to carry their mobile phones around with them.
> I think it's completely reasonable in 2023 to expect the general public to carry their mobile phones around with them.
I have to respectfully disagree with you on that one. Phones get lost, stolen, damaged, compromised, forgotten and batteries die or get low enough to not want to drain what's left reading a menu when paper menus have existed for trillions of years and didn't need fixing.
Many families also have a "no devices at the dinner table" policy and so it's annoying for the restaurant to undermine that.
So no. I don't think it's reasonable to expect me to use MY phone when I'm in person at your establishment.
The market will ultimately decide, however. I know I'm the grumpy old guy that hates tech despite being a software engineer.
I suspect you might be in the minority, unless the staff is outright atrocious. I love interacting with other humans. Working remote so much face to face interactions are a positive for me. I don't want to spend my entire day pushing and clicking buttons then my "break" from that is pushing and clicking different buttons.
I think as far as tipping goes Software vendors are working overtime with business owners that customer tip nonetheless even if there is no human in sight in whole establishment. Maybe a poor robot needs screws tightened, or joints lubricated with money in tip jar by generous patrons like you.
My comment re: tipping really was just further emphasizing the "forced pleasantries" of modern dining. I know this is a relatively bitter/cynical take, but at the end of the day, I'm there to get food, the workers are there to work and get money. I'm not trying to be someone's friend while they're at work.
Note that ADHD can manifest physically, mentally, or a combination of the two. I've been recently diagnosed with ADHD in my late 30s after finally seeing a psychiatrist, and at most my physical manifestation of it is minor fidgeting.
Where it really burns me is not being able to dedicate brainpower for more than a few minutes at a time, unless I'm in one of my "focus" modes. Similarly, my brain constantly has multiple tasks/"conversations" going on and I'm always thinking of something else. Additionally, I'm always chasing something novel to satisfy some dopamine hit.
I've honestly worked around a lot of the issues I deal with prior to being diagnosed, knowing when I'm not in a "focus" mode and trying to (gently) steer back to being productive. I joke about my "gaming ADHD" where I don't sit with a game for more than a half hour or so before moving on to something else. Internal dialogues are just something I work with.
Not saying you're right or wrong, but it's difficult to compare someone else's problems with your own (potential) issues.
e: Also note that there are non-stimulants on the market. I'm currently trialing one while I wait for a cardiologist to review some records for possible stimulant conflicts.
Did you have the inability to read books? I notice that I simply cannot focus on reading a book to save my life. I can read internet comments and articles all day though. If I try to read a book I get annoyed that they're "not making their point" fast enough, especially with fiction and visual descriptions of people and places. I used to just complain about it, but now I wonder if thats actually pinpointing something wrong with my brain (such as ADHD). If I'm reading fiction, I do not translate the word "red" with the color, things like that. And usually within 2-3 paragraphs, my eyes are reading the text but my brain is thinking about computers or what I need to get done that weekend. It's awful because I'm missing out on an entire mode of art but I dont know what to do about it. I've only been enthralled in a book once or twice in my 40 years of life.
I read a ludicrous amount of books as a kid. Stuff like The Wheel of Time, 1000+ page books.
Now I just buy books and don't read them. I'll also buy audiobooks and bounce between them not really remembering much of the plots until I fall asleep.
I think the instant gratification of refreshing reddit/digg(rip)/instagram and having completely new things to see/read has destroyed my long term attention span.
I don't really like watching TV or playing consoles without having my laptop on my lap so that I can multitask and if I get bored for a minute refresh and see new things. It's bad. I'm single right now so I haven't actually used my living room TV in months. I do everything on my computer.
This is definitely a common thing these days. I'll mention that as someone diagnosed (within the last year) the same is true about me. But what's also distinguishing is that there's hyper-observant behavior. For example I might be out with friends and having a hard time maintaining a conversation because I'm queued into the conversations at the table to my left and to my right. Not because I want to, but because I can't turn it off. I've been like that since a kid too. Even back in 2005 I'd have the TV on, my laptop out, and be doing homework while clicking through Stumble Upon. So I definitely think there are aspects of our modern society that are creating an attention deficit disorder at a larger level but I think there are still things that distinguish ADHD from attention/novelty addiction. But don't be afraid to get tested if you think you have ADHD, it'll be covered by your insurance and can help you learn to better handle your issues.
But I definitely think we do need a discussion, especially as the people developing these addictive technologies, as to the consequences of what we build. Maybe you shouldn't take that job at TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, or Facebook, maybe you should. Just consider more than the money because if you can get one of those jobs you can probably get another high paying job. Or maybe question certain features and/or metrics and ask if they actually align with your real goals and if those goals are actually beneficial or harmful (it's frequently not obvious a priori). Move fast and break things is a useful strategy but not in every situation. Not everything can be repaired as easily as they can be broken.
> Now I just buy books and don't read them. I'll also buy audiobooks and bounce between them not really remembering much of the plots until I fall asleep.
I'm sorta addicted to Audio books. I apparently listened to slightly over 2000 one year on Audible.
Though for me, I can have half a dozen books and remember most of the plot(s). Smaller details will slip my mind, but the overall plot gist is just like a fun puzzle for my ADHD brain and it's back within minutes. Though for the life of me I can't recall if I took my medication today.
> I don't really like watching TV ...
Ugh, I've gotten that way in the past few years. It's kinda annoying, and I can only "focus" if it's a really good TV show.
My issue with reading is that my eyes will continue on while my brain has already left the station, so to speak. I'll end up having to go back and re-read sentences/paragraphs.
I started doing some research (prior to speaking with my psychiatrist) and started noticing some ADHD-esque behaviors in my toddler. I'm not looking to get them diagnosed (yet?), because who knows what is "normal young kid inattentiveness and hyperactivity" versus anything else, but ADHD is absolutely hereditary and a family history is one aspect that is/was used to diagnose.
I have a 9 year old dyslexic boy with solid ADHD (impulsive). It’s been quite the journey (so far).
He is heading back to ‘normal’ school next semester with no special support and fully integrated almost like a neurotypical. Sort of.
I have the same ADHD style:
Overall lessons:
1. Sleep. Melatonin. Transformational
2. Love. Love and more love.
3. Forgiveness and understanding
4. Throwing the kitchen sink at him for finding the outlet (sport) he loved. Gave him a sense of direction.
5. Ritalin: assists with ability to concentrate and therefore learn. Used only for education.
6. Educate yourself and get diagnosed yourself if you have.
7. Be the change in yourself and mirror and explain what you know (and don’t know)
8. Full spectrum intelligence test. Know where the issues are (processing speed, etc) and also where the strengths are.
We got a semi diagnosis at 5, then year on year assessments to see what we could know.
I wish there was a better support and road map for the steps to go through as a parent. I feel very lucky to be a dad of a child with ADHD in this time though.
This is good to hear that you have a solid foundation of how to best work with your son. I definitely wish I had that level of support growing up! I'm hoping to do the same with my kid.
I think your situation (especially with your child) outlines one of the insidious challenges we face in our modern society: breaking through the confusion and understanding the nuance of an issue (in this case, ADHD).
We've all heard the misinformation tropes "Back in my day, a kid was hyper because he wanted to play, nowadays $BOGEYMAN says those kids need to be medicated so they can get a 4.0", and they sound so alluring to large groups of people, so they write off ADHD altogether. Yet I distinctly remember kids from my childhood who could not hold a conversation, they would literally break off into a new topic while you were mid-sentence with them. Tell me how that kid can possibly learn anything if he doesn't even know that he vacated a conversation.
This is a parallel to George Carlin's "It's called shell-shock" spiel, or used by people to deny the existence of depression. It's very difficult to both convey nuance, and get people to accept it, even though it (the nuance) abuts life-threatening issues.
For people my age it was "Back in my day, people applied good old fashioned discipline. That's all ADHD is, a lack of discipline." Often discipline came via the strap or similar.
> Yet I distinctly remember kids from my childhood who could not hold a conversation, they would literally break off into a new topic while you were mid-sentence with them.
I have some variant of this - I'm constantly, subconsciously cutting in during someone else's sentence just to blurt out what immediately came to my brain, because I usually forget it by the time they are done. It's something I'm really working on, but it gets better day-by-day.
take good care of the kids nutrition. read up on it. take it serious. let it eat clean. don't fuck this up.
the connection between ADHD and nutrition is brutally underrated, in terms of amounts per meal, intake of food additives and the mix as well. if starchy carbs, then very little fat and little protein. if meat, then no bread, no potatoes, no noodles or similar stuff at all. veggies are always fine except if the digestion of the kid says otherwise. sugar is a tricky thing. timing is important in terms of time of day and time after food intake but it works bad after some foods, which is different depending on geographical origin of grandparents.
you don't need to point a camera on the kid or anything. the effects of foods and the stuff that the body releases to digest the different compounds on body and brain become obvious within an hour or two. but you need to know the baseline(s) of your kid, e.g. time of day, after activities, around certain people, in places, crowds, moods, etc. make sure you do.
this is something I have long thought about. carbs make me batty.
doing keto made my skin look much better, but also helped me focus, and I found it was easier to sleep. whenever I had cheat days and crushed like half a pizza I found I immediately was exhausted and had trouble focusing.
also coffee vs. tea. switching to tea every other day instead of coffee really dove home how much of an impact coffee has on things like serotonin[1].
interesting. will definitely take a look at caffeine's effect on serotonin. thank you.
most tea brands have a bad impact on my digestion and while I thought it must be the theine, which, as I learned, is just caffeine, I now believe it's connected to residue pesticides[1] since "homegrown teas" don't have the same highly undesirable impact.
anything that screws with my digestion makes my gut, the literal and metaphorical one, itchy and I get nervous. similar things happen when I eat short-chained carbs in amounts over 100g in one meal but the negative effect disappears after an at least 13h fasting period or 16h+ if I drank liquor the night before. so I assume it has to do with enzymes released in the mouth and in later stages of digestion since I sometimes start to feel itchy even though I only started chewing oats for example.
I believe my sensitivity and ADHD are linked to the amount of enzymes produced by my body during digestion and or some genetic mutation in an enzyme associated with the respective metabolisms.
the lack of focus and the exhaustion after eating carbs are relatable, but again , only if the fasting period wasn't long enough.
I tried Keto, but it made me quite a bit slower, which wasn't bad in terms of performance, but my cognitive processing speed was so much slower that I could not get used to it.
You might check out BeeLine Reader (I am the creator). [1] It's fairly popular in the ADHD community because it enhances visual focus while you're reading. Some people are able to read for 2x-10x as long with BeeLine versus without. I'm always happy to help out HNers with a free code for our browser plugin, just shoot me an email (contact in profile).
Is this the same beeline from 10 years ago? I sort of remember installing it back in middle school and really loving it and helping my ability to read walls of text. I never knew it got popular within the ADHD community or that it was still around.
Another reader helper I liked was the one that flashed words in place but that seemed more like a speed read hack rather than actually comprehending what you read, never used it seriously like BeeLine
Yep, the same one. You probably heard of us from our Show HN, [1] which I later found out was the 9th-most-popular Show HN, by upvote count. It really gave us a boost, and led to a flurry of media coverage!
We still have our browser plugins for web [2] and PDF, [3] but are now also integrated into education platforms, [4] and even some news websites. [5]
I've been bootstrapping it (and raising a family) so growth has not been as meteoric as some other startups, but it's been consistently up-and-to-the-right!
If there's ever a platform you'd like to see us work with, just let us know and we'll get on it.
I have this happen, I noticed reading is something I kind of need to practice. Maybe short comments ruined my brain lol.
I started getting into reading long books again last year. The beginning was rough, I was starting to think there was something wrong me. Sometimes I still do, but just being consistent and not hard on my self, I'm able to focus longer on reading and enjoy it. Some books and authors are easier then others too. LOTR series was work at times, enders game was pretty easy.
Alot if non fiction sucks too though and is pretty long winded.
If your worried about missing out on writing, there are short stories, and novellas to read
I can read novels I'm interested in. I read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy, but DNF a LOT of books that I cannot get into. My wife cannot not finish a book. Doesn't matter how bad it is, if she starts it she will eventually make her way through the book. She may put it down for a while and read something else in between but she persists. Regardless, we both average a little over a book a week. The game changer for me was shifting from reading at night (often well into the morning) to switching to audiobooks that I can listen to while hauling kids around, working in the garage or doing chores. Now I can DNF audiobooks because the narrator pronounces a word weird.
I am the same, I found a book I could hyper focus on. That was the Chaos Walking by Patrick Ness
I was so fully pulled into that world I was quite sad once I got to the end because I know I'm not probably never going to find a book like that again.
I do this with most texts I have to read each sentence 3-4 times because I know I will have made up half of the words I just read.
I have the same issue with my brain not really thinking about the current situation, if I'm talking to someone I will get bored in a minute or two and it's a real effort to force myself to pay attention.
Yeah, mine said it's ~50/50 shot. We're trying the non-stimulant while waiting on the cardiologist to do a deeper look at a potential heart issue. shrug
The most I've felt with the atomoxetine is a loss of appetite, which I'm not opposed to for the time being :)
I listen to a few podcasts focused on US politics:
David Pakman (has a finance background, very level-headed in his viewpoints): https://davidpakman.com/
I like David Pakman but feel like this type of political content needs to be consumed in far greater moderation and not on a daily basis. People that cover politics tend to hijack your brain with a lot of inconsequential events and information.
A good metric for me is probably something like: is this going to be important or relevant in a few weeks?
David Pakman had a podcast episode with Lex Fridman and even he recommends that you treat him as a small part of your media diet.
Reading through the article, it definitely highlighted concerns I had about my process: lack of available providers (to the point that many wouldn't even accept a call from a new patient), essentially forced to use online services, relatively short discussions before treatment, and ultimately being prescribed stimulants.
Overall, I'm glad I started this process. I definitely feel better on the medication, to the point where I'm able to effectively track my daily tasking, keep cohesive notes, drastically reduce my unintended verbal interruptions of others, and churn work out without context switching so often. I obviously can work without the medication, but it's absolutely a night and day difference to me. Ultimately, I just hope that the progression of the adult ADHD diagnosis and discovery continues to mature, and online services aren't completely cut off from the space.