ADHD and the Thirst for Novelty

Richard Friedman has an interesting essay about Attention Deficit/Hperactivity Syndrome in the Times:

Recent neuroscience research shows that people with A.D.H.D. are actually hard-wired for novelty-seeking — a trait that had, until relatively recently, a distinct evolutionary advantage. Compared with the rest of us, they have sluggish and underfed brain reward circuits, so much of everyday life feels routine and understimulating.

To compensate, they are drawn to new and exciting experiences and get famously impatient and restless with the regimented structure that characterizes our modern world. In short, people with A.D.H.D. may not have a disease, so much as a set of behavioral traits that don’t match the expectations of our contemporary culture. . . .

Setting aside the questionable brain science and evolutionary fables, this is pretty much what I think. My wife and I always joked that our eldest son is the one we would have kicked out of the house and sent to watch the sheep in the summer pasture. We have what looks like an epidemic of ADHD because we are pushing ever harder to get every child to finish high school, even those for whom sitting in class all day is torture. Friedman continues:

I think another social factor that, in part, may be driving the “epidemic” of A.D.H.D. has gone unnoticed: the increasingly stark contrast between the regimented and demanding school environment and the highly stimulating digital world, where young people spend their time outside school. Digital life, with its vivid gaming and exciting social media, is a world of immediate gratification where practically any desire or fantasy can be realized in the blink of an eye. By comparison, school would seem even duller to a novelty-seeking kid living in the early 21st century than in previous decades, and the comparatively boring school environment might accentuate students’ inattentive behavior, making their teachers more likely to see it and driving up the number of diagnoses.

Except for the "gone unnoticed" line, this also makes sense to me. A vast swath of the internet caters to people with minute attention spans; my sons are fans of a web site where comedians are given six seconds to do something funny, which sort of boggles my aged brain.

But if this is true, what can we do about it? Friedman tosses off some ill-thought-out notions about changing schools to accommodate ADHD students --

In school, these curious, experience-seeking kids would most likely do better in small classes that emphasize hands-on-learning, self-paced computer assignments and tasks that build specific skills.

which are never going to happen. His advice about careers is quite good -- ADHD people should seek out jobs that keep them on the move and regularly expose them to new situations. The problem with this advice is that most of the jobs I can think of that fit this description require either a college degree or other extensive training, or else they pay terribly. Archaeological field supervisor, for example, is a good job for a smart young person who needs to be on the move, but it requires a BA and increasingly a master's degree. (Which explains why we have trouble finding good field supervisors -- people with both the educational aptitude and the energy to succeed can make a lot more money doing something else.)

So I fear that in our credential-obsessed age people who can't succeed in school are going to fall ever farther behind, and that ADHD sufferers will become yet another swath of our population that sinks toward poverty as those with the right sort of ambition and energy pull farther away.