[louthy]

> It's not about attention deficit per se

I've always considered it Too Much Attention Disorder.

The way I like to think about it is that neurotypical people have a beam of light shining out in front of them, wherever they turn their head the light shines and that's where their attention is. Nothing else distracts them from where the light is shining.

With ADHD (for me at least) it's like 50 beams of light scanning the entire room constantly for 'something'. This is too much attention to things that I'm not really interested in, but can distract me from anything I'm trying to do or wan't to do.

For things that I am really interested in (like writing code) the 50 beams of light all manage to synchronise and focus in the same place and that's hyperfocus.

[orphea]

Attention means an ability to ignore unimportant things. This is why the disorder is attention deficit - your ability to ignore distractions is diminished.

[gausswho]

It's a confounding definition for me because of the inherent ambiguity, along the lines of a double negative. A disorder of ignoring, what does that tell us about what we attend to?

[Terr_]

I often like to point out that we are completely blind to the most common thing around us, nitrogen gas. This blindness is good, because it allows us to attend to everything else, instead of stumbling around through a fog and over cliffs and into the maws of ambush predators.

While it's usually part of a rant about false color pictures in astronomy, it applies cognitively too. It's about the signal to noise ratio, and what constitutes signal versus noise can change in an instant.

[SmirkingRevenge]

Yea, ADHD attention is a like targeting system that has only one setting - it's constantly seeking the most stimulating activity nearby and never stops - sometimes the most engaging feeling activity even changes from minute to minute.

But the hyper-focus can be magical when it targets the task you need to do!

[louthy]

Indeed, I wouldn’t give up hyperfocus for anything. When it kicks in, it genuinely feels like a super power. It’s pretty much given me a career; but also just pure enjoyment from creating and making.

[hnlmorg]

That’s such a beautiful way of putting it