Mark Fisher said in ‘Capitalist Realism’ that ADHD is:
>a pathology of late capitalism – a consequence of being wired into the entertainment control circuits of hypermediated consumer culture
I think there’s some truth in it. People aren’t wired to deal with the massive amounts of information and constant demands on our attention that we are living through.
In 20 short years, our societies have changed drastically, quicker than we as a species can adapt to. It’s easier to place the locus with the individual rather than admit that the systems we live under are deeply flawed and our ability to thrive is negated by them.
> Sweden is seeing “an explosion” of ADHD cases among children that has put it far above the global average, the government said Friday as it ordered a review to find out why.
>
> Around 10.5 percent of boys and six percent of girls in Sweden in 2022 had been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Social Affairs Minister Jakob Forssmed told reporters, citing statistics from the Board of Health and Welfare.
>
> The figures were expected to rise to 15 and 11 percent respectively before levelling off, he said, citing a forecast from the Swedish Medical Products Agency.
>
> Around five to seven percent of children worldwide have an ADHD diagnosis, the government said.
>
> “Sweden stands out in this context. The number of ADHD diagnoses has increased sharply over time… and shows no sign of abating,” Forssmed said.
>
> In addition, ADHD medications prescribed to boys aged 10 to 17 had increased by 800 percent over the past 15 years, from one percent of boys having a prescription in 2001 to eight percent in 2022.
>
> For girls the increase was tenfold, from 0.5 percent to around five percent.
>
> Forssmed ordered the Medical Products Agency and other concerned authorities to conduct a review to find out what was behind the surge.
>
> “More knowledge is needed,” he said.
>
> Since Sweden’s previous treatment recommendation was issued in 2016, “new medications have been developed, as well as new research and expanded indicators”, he said.
>
> Forssmed said some of the explanations that have been floated include “increased awareness among healthcare professionals, schools and the public (and) broader diagnosis criteria”.
>
> “There also seems to be a belief that a diagnosis has been a formal or informal prerequisite to be able to get extra help in school.”
>
> He said the review was part of the government’s plan to promote mental health and prevent suicide among children and youths.
Man, I swear when is this country ever going to stop fucking over ppl through drug paranoia.
All this things have spectrums,
Everyone’s attention spans have been wrecked by constant access to technology. Yes people were television addicts a few decades ago but they couldn’t have continuous access in their pockets when they left the house
Mobile phones and platforms like TikTok
It was coz finally we, as women, can be diagnosed. And with that they are often diagnosing our children, too
in Sweden, 82% of kids aged 6 have a smartphone.
That’s the reason.
[deleted]
People keep saying it’s smartphones which is a completely stupid point of view. No one would say autism or dyslexia was caused by smartphones but you are happy to say ADHD. They are extremely similar conditions.
ADHD has so far been under-diagnosed. Many people get diagnosed as adults and finally understand what has been wrong with them their whole lives.
It’s great those kids will grow up understanding their quirks and learning to cope with their unique difficulties.
“There also seems to be a belief that a diagnosis has been a formal or informal prerequisite to be able to get extra help in school.”
As the parent of an ADHD diagnosed child in Sweden I call absolute bullshit on this.
My child got zero fucking “extra help” in anything. The resources simply don’t exist. Despite almost weekly meetings with teaching staff and social services where it simply felt like they were collectively kicking the can down the road to a point where the child would be old enough for it to be somebody else’s problem.
Is there any financial gain to being diagnosed/having children be diagnosed?
There’s no way 15% of boys actually have ADHD.
It’s obvious – they are misdiagnosing kids as having it when they don’t. There’s something wrong with the testing procedure – the thresholds for having it are too low or something.
There’s certainly a lot of real cases out there, but not to the tune of 3/20 boys.
The thing with adhd medication is that everyone would benefit from them.
They will never admit. Lets face it neurological damages are sideffects of Covid, aka low attention span, memory problems… Sweden was on the forefront of let it rip through the children to gain herd immunity, this is as clear as hell that there is a connection between sharp rises in ADHD in children and Covid!
But they are too proud to admit that they f** up also because they sent the message to the world that you can safely do it without any big problems!
Is it just me or are a lot of TikTok videos steering towards adhd? I’m like, fuck off with these and always instantly skip them
Why is nuance so hard on this topic? The fact that it’s perhaps plausible that there’s an excess of people being diagnosed with ADHD does NOT suddenly mean that people who actually have it don’t exist. That’s it’s all made up and fake. Actually having ADHD means your brain literally doesn’t produce the same chemicals as as others, your brain does not function the same way. You can’t ‘feel’ your way out of it. It’s problematic because diagnosing ADHD is not based on measuring some physical component, but you reach a point where the evidence is so overwhelming (assuming there’s not other motivations, like trying to score ADHD drugs, or as here apparently some extra school help motivation) throughout your life, over a long list of symptoms that you can pretty conclusively say you have it. And if receiving ADHD medicines after your diagnosis literally calms down all of those specific ADHD symptoms. Also, you can easily just not even have the hyperactive part of ADHD, the one that gets noticed easily when kids flip out in class. Then they are just quiet, relatively functional kids who only start to realize they have ADHD much later on, even as adults.
The causes seems to be mostly hereditary, but studies have shown parents who drink and/or smoke are the highest of risks to have children with ADHD.
However, over stimulation by technology and high energy foods is certainly an exasperater, but not the cause.
Bro what? I’m Swedish and since 1st grade til now I have yet so see more than one at all schools combined have ADHD.
21 comments
[deleted]
Mark Fisher said in ‘Capitalist Realism’ that ADHD is:
>a pathology of late capitalism – a consequence of being wired into the entertainment control circuits of hypermediated consumer culture
I think there’s some truth in it. People aren’t wired to deal with the massive amounts of information and constant demands on our attention that we are living through.
In 20 short years, our societies have changed drastically, quicker than we as a species can adapt to. It’s easier to place the locus with the individual rather than admit that the systems we live under are deeply flawed and our ability to thrive is negated by them.
> Sweden is seeing “an explosion” of ADHD cases among children that has put it far above the global average, the government said Friday as it ordered a review to find out why.
>
> Around 10.5 percent of boys and six percent of girls in Sweden in 2022 had been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Social Affairs Minister Jakob Forssmed told reporters, citing statistics from the Board of Health and Welfare.
>
> The figures were expected to rise to 15 and 11 percent respectively before levelling off, he said, citing a forecast from the Swedish Medical Products Agency.
>
> Around five to seven percent of children worldwide have an ADHD diagnosis, the government said.
>
> “Sweden stands out in this context. The number of ADHD diagnoses has increased sharply over time… and shows no sign of abating,” Forssmed said.
>
> In addition, ADHD medications prescribed to boys aged 10 to 17 had increased by 800 percent over the past 15 years, from one percent of boys having a prescription in 2001 to eight percent in 2022.
>
> For girls the increase was tenfold, from 0.5 percent to around five percent.
>
> Forssmed ordered the Medical Products Agency and other concerned authorities to conduct a review to find out what was behind the surge.
>
> “More knowledge is needed,” he said.
>
> Since Sweden’s previous treatment recommendation was issued in 2016, “new medications have been developed, as well as new research and expanded indicators”, he said.
>
> Forssmed said some of the explanations that have been floated include “increased awareness among healthcare professionals, schools and the public (and) broader diagnosis criteria”.
>
> “There also seems to be a belief that a diagnosis has been a formal or informal prerequisite to be able to get extra help in school.”
>
> He said the review was part of the government’s plan to promote mental health and prevent suicide among children and youths.
Man, I swear when is this country ever going to stop fucking over ppl through drug paranoia.
All this things have spectrums,
Everyone’s attention spans have been wrecked by constant access to technology. Yes people were television addicts a few decades ago but they couldn’t have continuous access in their pockets when they left the house
Mobile phones and platforms like TikTok
It was coz finally we, as women, can be diagnosed. And with that they are often diagnosing our children, too
in Sweden, 82% of kids aged 6 have a smartphone.
That’s the reason.
[deleted]
People keep saying it’s smartphones which is a completely stupid point of view. No one would say autism or dyslexia was caused by smartphones but you are happy to say ADHD. They are extremely similar conditions.
ADHD has so far been under-diagnosed. Many people get diagnosed as adults and finally understand what has been wrong with them their whole lives.
It’s great those kids will grow up understanding their quirks and learning to cope with their unique difficulties.
“There also seems to be a belief that a diagnosis has been a formal or informal prerequisite to be able to get extra help in school.”
As the parent of an ADHD diagnosed child in Sweden I call absolute bullshit on this.
My child got zero fucking “extra help” in anything. The resources simply don’t exist. Despite almost weekly meetings with teaching staff and social services where it simply felt like they were collectively kicking the can down the road to a point where the child would be old enough for it to be somebody else’s problem.
Is there any financial gain to being diagnosed/having children be diagnosed?
There’s no way 15% of boys actually have ADHD.
It’s obvious – they are misdiagnosing kids as having it when they don’t. There’s something wrong with the testing procedure – the thresholds for having it are too low or something.
There’s certainly a lot of real cases out there, but not to the tune of 3/20 boys.
The thing with adhd medication is that everyone would benefit from them.
They will never admit. Lets face it neurological damages are sideffects of Covid, aka low attention span, memory problems… Sweden was on the forefront of let it rip through the children to gain herd immunity, this is as clear as hell that there is a connection between sharp rises in ADHD in children and Covid!
But they are too proud to admit that they f** up also because they sent the message to the world that you can safely do it without any big problems!
Is it just me or are a lot of TikTok videos steering towards adhd? I’m like, fuck off with these and always instantly skip them
Why is nuance so hard on this topic? The fact that it’s perhaps plausible that there’s an excess of people being diagnosed with ADHD does NOT suddenly mean that people who actually have it don’t exist. That’s it’s all made up and fake. Actually having ADHD means your brain literally doesn’t produce the same chemicals as as others, your brain does not function the same way. You can’t ‘feel’ your way out of it. It’s problematic because diagnosing ADHD is not based on measuring some physical component, but you reach a point where the evidence is so overwhelming (assuming there’s not other motivations, like trying to score ADHD drugs, or as here apparently some extra school help motivation) throughout your life, over a long list of symptoms that you can pretty conclusively say you have it. And if receiving ADHD medicines after your diagnosis literally calms down all of those specific ADHD symptoms. Also, you can easily just not even have the hyperactive part of ADHD, the one that gets noticed easily when kids flip out in class. Then they are just quiet, relatively functional kids who only start to realize they have ADHD much later on, even as adults.
The causes seems to be mostly hereditary, but studies have shown parents who drink and/or smoke are the highest of risks to have children with ADHD.
However, over stimulation by technology and high energy foods is certainly an exasperater, but not the cause.
Bro what? I’m Swedish and since 1st grade til now I have yet so see more than one at all schools combined have ADHD.