I'm still not convinced that the symptoms described in the article can be considered a disorder, any more than 'not exercising' can be a disorder. He's choosing to do certain things and not do other things. The consequences are bad. But is that a mental illness problem, or just that the consequences aren't bad enough, the behavior not repugnant enough, and thus he doesn't care enough? With a gun to his head, would he do his errands? Under threat of immediate termination from work? I'm guessing yes. So at what point is that a mental disorder and not just him deciding to not do things he doesn't want to do?
Philosophically, how can we say that a person's poor choices of behavior are mental disorders when they don't even lead to life threatening outcomes? Is smoking a mental disorder? He wishes he could quit, but keeps buying packs. Is being fat a mental disorder? He wishes he was thin, but doesn't exercise and keeps eating pizza. Is simply not grinding leetcode a mental disorder? He wants a higher salary, yet doesn't even practice leetcode or interview questions.
He wants to stop procrastinating his work, but he watches YouTube instead until all the work simply must be done in a long all-nighter. Is this a mental disorder? Apparently to a lot of people, yes, this is ADHD! You need lifelong medication now; your brain doesn't work right! No, this doesn't sound quite right to me.
Addiction is real, and he likely really is addicted to the internet. That's a real problem he should fix. And it may be that ADHD medication helps him fix it; I've taken Adderall for a period of time and it certainly fixed any procrastination tendencies I had as well (I don't have ADHD). But if we're going to make the case that medication helps and thus it should be taken, why do we need to pretend it's about a mental disorder? It helps me focus and perform better at work, so it should be available to me, no? Or does its help have to meet an arbitrary level of helpfulness to be permitted?
Basically, I'm not convinced ADHD is anything more than a label delineating one end of a spectrum of self determination. The cutoff seems arbitrary, and there is a lot of reverse engineering to arrive at the end result of medication: He would be helped by Adderall, thus he must have ADHD, thus his procrastination is actually a mental disorder and not just being lazy. We can go down that road as a society, but I prefer the road where we just collectively admit, "Yeah I'm lazy so I take a pill and it helps," without the veneer of noble medicine curing Real Disorders.
Philosophically, how can we say that a person's poor choices of behavior are mental disorders when they don't even lead to life threatening outcomes? Is smoking a mental disorder? He wishes he could quit, but keeps buying packs. Is being fat a mental disorder? He wishes he was thin, but doesn't exercise and keeps eating pizza. Is simply not grinding leetcode a mental disorder? He wants a higher salary, yet doesn't even practice leetcode or interview questions.
He wants to stop procrastinating his work, but he watches YouTube instead until all the work simply must be done in a long all-nighter. Is this a mental disorder? Apparently to a lot of people, yes, this is ADHD! You need lifelong medication now; your brain doesn't work right! No, this doesn't sound quite right to me.
Addiction is real, and he likely really is addicted to the internet. That's a real problem he should fix. And it may be that ADHD medication helps him fix it; I've taken Adderall for a period of time and it certainly fixed any procrastination tendencies I had as well (I don't have ADHD). But if we're going to make the case that medication helps and thus it should be taken, why do we need to pretend it's about a mental disorder? It helps me focus and perform better at work, so it should be available to me, no? Or does its help have to meet an arbitrary level of helpfulness to be permitted?
Basically, I'm not convinced ADHD is anything more than a label delineating one end of a spectrum of self determination. The cutoff seems arbitrary, and there is a lot of reverse engineering to arrive at the end result of medication: He would be helped by Adderall, thus he must have ADHD, thus his procrastination is actually a mental disorder and not just being lazy. We can go down that road as a society, but I prefer the road where we just collectively admit, "Yeah I'm lazy so I take a pill and it helps," without the veneer of noble medicine curing Real Disorders.