Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Aurornis 146 days ago
It’s amazing how far the pop-culture definition of ADHD has strayed from the medical definition. “Hyperfocus … until world class performance” is in no way consistent with the medical definition of ADHD. I’m well aware that “hyperfocus” is a prominent part of the Reddit and TikTok-ification of ADHD diagnostics, but being able to focus intensely on your job until you perform it at world class levels is decisively not indicative of ADHD. Hyperfocus is not part of official ADHD diagnostic criteria and the only pseudo-studies that have examined it have taken place as self-reported questionnaires with small sample sizes in the era since it became a popular topic on social media, unfortunately.

ADHD is not correlated with high career performance, sadly, and represents a real obstacle for those struggling with it. The current social media trend of equating ADHD to a superpower which propels people to focus intensely and excel is really unfortunate.
2 comments
zozbot234 146 days ago
Hyperfocus is not about "focusing intensely on your job until you perform it at world-class level". The hyperfocus of ADHD is essentially random and driven by the very same inattentive "monkey mind" that's the defining feature of ADHD itself: it's not necessarily targeted to a productive task.

Those who face this issue can of course try to "gamify" their upcoming tasks to themselves in a way that will hopefully steer that focus in desirable directions, but that's not always easy. The monkey mind also resists ongoing habit formation, which is the tool most non-ADHD folks would generally resort to in order to effectively manage their overall schedule and just be more on-task.

link
mjanx123 146 days ago
Its not random. The neurodivergent brain lacks the ability to perceive (some aspects of) the virtual social reality as something real and to focus on that. In a startup, where the problems at hand are objectively real, the ADHD hyperfocus can excel. In a typical corporation, where the situation is the opposite, it struggles.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9541695/

link
zozbot234 146 days ago
It's obviously true that making outcomes more immediately tangible helps make them more appealing to the ADHD brain (that's a very clear kind of "gamification") but I'm not sure how that disagrees with what I said.
link
Aurornis 146 days ago
> Hyperfocus is not about "focusing intensely on your job until you perform it at world-class level"

I was responding to the comment that compared the high performing people in this article to a case of ADHD.

I agree that the features of ADHD are not consistent with intense, directed focus on specific goals as discussed in the article.

link
wisty 146 days ago
I suspect it's partly diagnostic creep. Either real actual professional creep, or self diagnosis.

Some mental illnessess are extreme versions of traits that are often useful. It's good have one person in the village who frets about dangerous stuff, for example. Anxiety is useful at times.

But as you start to diagnose the very functional people who just need a few points to get a top uni course (or people self diagnose) ... well ... maybe you're picking up far less extreme and maladaptive versions of the trait.

link