What I've Learned From A.D.D

• the patient often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat
• often leaves seat in classroom or in other situations in which remaining seated is expected
• often runs about or climbs excessively in situations in which it is inappropriate
• often has difficulty playing or engaging in leisure activities
• is often "on the go" or often acts as if "driven by a motor"
• often talks excessively
• often blurts out answers before questions have been completed
• often has difficulty awaiting turn
• often interrupts or intrudes on others

2. Some hyperactive-impulse symptoms that caused impairment were present before the age of 7;

3. Some impairment from the symptoms is present in two or more settings (such as school, work, home);

4. There is clear evidence of clinically significant impairment in social, or occupational functioning.

A Culture Driven To Distraction

America today suffers from culturally induced attention deficit disorders, or what I call "pseudo-ADD." That's one reason ADD has captured the imagination of so many people, and why the diagnosis has become so seductive that it sometimes seems more like a designer label on a piece of clothing than a real, potentially disabling disorder.

Pseudo-ADD has many of the same core symptoms as true ADD—a high level of impulsivity, an ongoing search for high stimulation, a tendency to restless behavior and impatience, and a very active, fleeting attention span.

It's easy to see how our culture can induce as ADD-like state. When I was a little boy, growing up in the 1950s, television had only recently come into every American's living room, and dial telephones had not yet appeared in my small town. Now we all have access to everyone else, any time, anywhere, always. A colleague of mine recently received 40,000 pieces of e-mail in a week. Computers, cell phones, voicemail, satellite technology, fax, copy machines, DVDR's, cable TV, the Internet, video conferences—all these are now commonplace. We are, as the cliche has it, wired—stimulated and speeded up day and night, constantly sending and receiving messages.

And yet, as we've become hyperconnected electronically, we've become disconnected interpersonally. We no longer sit down and talk, face-to-face, the way we once did. Each connection is briefer, more fleeting, and followed by another as ephemeral. Without a feeling of deep and stable connectedness, people feel at sea; distracted, restless, and hungry for something ever nameless—the very same symptoms we associate with ADD.

Because ADD so resembles the side effects of living in the early twenty-first century, the diagnostician must sometimes ask, "Does this person suffer from attention deficit disorder or just a severe case of modern life?" The answer is usually clear-cut. The symptoms of pseudo-ADD melt away when the individual is taken out of the ADD-ogenic environment. In true ADD the symptoms remain. The treatment for pseudo-ADD is to slow down and connect with what matters to you. Turn off the TV and stop checking voicemail; have dinner together with your family or companions; get to know your neighbors; re-establish contact with your extended family; and learn to say no to some of the endless requests for your time.

This is easier said than done, as multitudes of seemingly irresistible demands press upon the gateways to our minds all the time. How can we live wired but still plugged in, face-to-face? One answer is to shift our society, to reinvent from the ground up the structures that used to work for us but don't work well today, such as family, church, social clubs, the small town and the neighborhood. The more practical answer is to take responsibility as individuals and vigorously insist upon a calmer, more connected lifestyle. You'll be fighting the tide of an entire culture, but the reward is a richer, fuller, more meaningful life.