Kim

Debbie Kim
Psychoanalysis + Society
Alan McKenna
April 24, 2016

Social Medias Impact on Rising ADHD Medication Consumption


When considering social issues within the psychological realm, the topic of Attention-

Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and increase in medications such as Ritalin, Adderall, and

Vyvanse is a common one. How can it not be when there are articles headlined You Now Have

a Shorter Attention Span Than a Goldfish? This is a prevalent problem within the younger

generation, especially in North America. The question is why. How can the greatest continent

on the planet have the future leaders of America suffering from ADHD? I believe that the

prevailing decrease of our generations attention span and increase in ADHD medication

consumption is a result of the ever growing need for social media and technology. The purpose

of the essay is to use psychoanalytic theories in order to discover the root of this issue. I will

first discuss the scale of the problem and how it is considered an epidemic. I will then utilize

psychoanalytic theories in order to discuss why millennials find it extremely important to

constantly be plugged into media outlets and also offer an alternative view to this issue. Of

course the entirety of an issue as large as this one cannot solely be explained by my opinion,

but I will utilize concepts I have learned from scholars such as Sigmund Freud and Erich Fromm

in order to demonstrate my argument.

As a part of this generation, I have witnessed more and more classmates depending on

medication such as Ritalin, Adderall, and Vyvanse. From my freshman year of high school to my

senior year, I have been able to personally observe this increase. Naively I thought it was just a
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trend at my school however, data suggests that it is a national epidemic. According to Time

Magazine, 6 million children in the U.S. have been diagnosed with ADHD, which equates to 1 in

10 children having the condition. In the past decade alone, the number of kids diagnosed with

this disorder has surged by over 50% (Rock, 2013). This exponential increase indicates that

there is something evidently wrong. Not necessarily with the victims, but with the system they

are in. For a condition to be so widely spread, it must be external forces and not internal.

According to psychologist Sigmund Freud in his article titled Civilization and Its

Discontents, an epidemic such as this one only makes sense. He argues that discontent is a

result of civilization advancing in technology, which ultimately causes neuroses and psychosis.

Freuds argument states that as pleasure seeking and pain avoiding creatures, we are

compromising our id to satisfy our sexual desire by imposing societal rules and regulations that

frown on such impulses. Because of civilization, we are deprived of this freedom we once had

as primitive species. However, he offers three remedies to lessen the discontent intoxicating

substances, diversions, of interest, and substitutive gratifications (Freud, 1961). I believe that

our generations way to deal with this suppression is through substitutive gratification. Freuds

idea of substitutive gratification included art, fantasies, writing, and religion. However, back

then he was not exposed to this powerful medium social media. How ironic that social media,

a technological advancement, is what we use to alleviate civilization.

Social media lessens misery and creates a false sense of happiness. Although the

happiness isnt necessarily real, it gives our generation some form of happiness to deal with the

discontent of civilization. The number of friends on Facebook, number of likes on Instagram

photos, and even the number of views on our Snapchat stories give us a sense of happiness.
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The vast usage of these iPhone and Android apps suggests that we enjoy and find pleasure in

them. Erich Fromm provides an answer as to why we millennials feel so strongly about gaining

approval on social media. In his book The Sane Society, he discusses what he considers the

needs and passions of mankind. Unlike Freuds claim that the strongest human desire is the

sexual drive, Fromm proposes several passions.

Out of these several passions, Fromms proposition of humans needing relatedness

instead of narcissism is one that fully supports my opinion of social medias prevalence.

According to Fromm, this is one of the many absolute principles mankind tries to fulfill in order

to be happy, and this principle supports my argument that social media is what millennials use

in order to dilute their discontent with civilization. The difference between man and mammals

is the fact that men are self-aware, causing us to recognize when we are separated or united

with other humans. When an individual completely fails to establish any kind of relationship

with others, also known as narcissism, Fromm considers him an insane person. Under Fromms

claim of relatedness and narcissism, he believes that being in union with others is an absolute,

imperative necessity of mankind. This can be executed in one of two ways union can be

sought via submission or dominance. Submission includes becoming part of something and man

can also try to unite himself with others by having power over others (Fromm, 1955). By taking

part in social media, we are exercising both submission and dominance. We submit to the

digital world by partaking in these different outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine,

and Snapchat; however, we try to dominate it by striving for the most likes and friends. This can

explain why we as humans are so obsessed with social media its a part of our nature and

according to Fromm, we need it.

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Now that I have utilized psychoanalysis to uncover why millennials feel so strongly to

stay in touch with others via social media, it is also important to recognize the effects of

consuming too much social media. A study conducted by Microsoft concluded that the average

human attention span went from twelve seconds in the year 2000 down to eight seconds in

2013. Goldfish, in comparison, have an attention span of nine seconds. The findings of this

study determined that the top factors impacting attention are media consumption, social

media usage, technology adoption rate, and multi-screening behavior. According to Microsoft,

the age group between 18-34 have the lowest sustained attention spans and concluded that

overall, digital lifestyles have a negative impact on prolonged attention span. However, neuro

readings show higher usage of social media increases short bursts of high attention, as opposed

to a sustained attention span (Microsoft, 2015). Logically thinking, this makes coherent sense.

Tweets have a maximum 140-character limit, Vines have a max video length of 6 seconds, and

Snapchats max out at 10 seconds. With this digital society, our brains are conditioned to

concentrate only for short periods of time. Consequently, this leads to difficulty in prolonged

attention, causing individuals to think that they have an attention disorder and eventually

driving them to purchase ADHD medication. This experiment further supports my argument

that social media is related to the increase of ADHD medication consumption.

Although I believe my analysis of the social media obsession results in negative

repercussions, an alterative view suggests that the consumption of social media actually brings

about some positive effects. In the same study that Microsoft deemed humans having attention

spans less than that of goldfish, the researchers also shed some positive light to the situation at

hand. The study finds that although that millennials prolonged attention span has decreased
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significantly, we are better able to sift through what we want to engage with and what we dont

want to engage with. This stems from our FaceBook NewsFeed or our Twitter timeline, as our

brains actively select which statuses or tweets we want to read. Experts say that this filtering

mechanism is a benefit, because we need less to process and commit things to memory.

Another silver lining from active social media lifestyles is that it builds alternating attention,

also known as multi-tasking, to a certain point. Instead of being able to pay attention for long

periods of time, moderate users of social media are better at multi-tasking than lower users.

The Microsoft study finds that 76% of the younger population (18-24 years of age) says multi-

tasking is the only way they can get things done, as opposed to a small 38% of those who are

65+ years of age. According to this study, multi-screen and multitasking environments not only

improve overall attention, but they also improve emotion connection and encoding to memory

(Microsoft, 2015).

The rise of ADHD medication consumption within America suggests that there is

something wrong with the system we live in. Through the staple works of Freud and Fromm, we

can conclude that civilization causes discontents and millennials turn to social media as a form

of substitutive gratification. Fromm would support this because humans have a need for

relatedness with the others and social media provides exactly that a digital connectedness.

This consumption of social media leads to effects such as reduced attention spans, thus causing

individuals to turn to ADHD medication such as Ritalin, Vyvanse, Adderall, and Vyvanse. This

psychoanalysis provides my opinion as to why this epidemic has occurred and will only continue

to exponentially grow.

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Bibliography

Rock, M. (2013, July 08). A Nation of Kids with Gadgets and ADHD | TIME.com. Retrieved April
26, 2016, from http://techland.time.com/2013/07/08/a-nation-of-kids-with-gadgets-and-adhd/

Attention Spans. (2015). Consumer Insights, Microsoft Canada, 1-52. Retrieved April 23, 2016.

Freud, S. (1961). Civilizations and its discontents. Nueva York, E.U.A.: Library of Congress.

Fromm, E. (1955). The Sane Society. New York: Rinehart.