ADHD and Gaming

The link between ADHD and Online Addictions

by AttentionDigital Health & Wellbeing
Does spending lots of time online cause ADHD?

Directly. It seems not.

Spending time on digital devices does reduce your ability to focus and concentrate and excessive use can cause symptoms similar to those displayed with ADHD, but using a device will not ‘give you’ ADHD.  

Indirectly. It seems to. 

According to Gabor Mate, ADHD is a coping mechanism that children develop when there is limited connection with their primary caregiver does not, or is not able to, respond to their immediate need for care, reassurance and comfort. 

If a child does not receive an appropriate level of comfort, eye contact and their basic needs met, the child turns their focus inwards to achieve the comfort they need. It is this inward focusing that wires the brain in a non-neuro-typical way. 

Historically, it was those parents who were overly stressed, emotionally overburdened or in a state of survival that did not give them the emotional and mental resources to extend the care and 1-2-1 attention a young child needs to feel secure and safe in the world. 

However, since the launch of the smartphone, how many parents of young children do you see staring at their mobile screens while their young children are seeking or needing their attention? 

There has been a dramatic increase in the number of children who are being diagnosed with ADHD, especially since the beginning of 2020. Is it just that we have more awareness of the condition and therefore a better ability to spot and diagnose it? OR are there simply more care-givers who are more distracted than ever before? 

Does ADHD predispose you to addictions?

Directly, it does seem to.

Those with ADHD have lower overall levels of Dopamine – the anticipation-feel-good hormone. Spending time online including scrolling through social media, gaming, gambling or pornography all contribute to regular, tiny bursts of Dopamine into the system.  

In their book ADHD 2.0, Dr Hallowell and Dr Ratey state that, ‘addiction of all kinds are five to ten times more common in people who have ADHD than in the general population.’  They talk about an itch that can only be scratched in certain ways. From a positive perspective, this leads to ‘adaptive, worthwhile and sustainable’ creativity, but can also lead to ‘maladaptive and destructive’ behaviour and addictions. 

There are socially acceptable forms of addiction and socially unacceptable forms of addiction. Online addictions vary by category on the spectrum from social media scrolling to gaming, gambling and pornography (to name a few).

All are driven by the same Dopamine itch that needs scratching (to a greater or lesser degree).

So what can we do about it?

If you have been diagnosed with ADHD or suspect you may have ADHD, here are a few things you can try:

  • Find a coach or therapist who works with adults who have ADHD to help you find different ways to manage the itch and find more creative outlets to express and capitalise on your inherent natural talents. 
  • Experiment with several external ‘real world’ activities that will help you build a local community and get you exercising.  Increasing your coordination and creating muscle movement is shown to help a number of those diagnosed with ADHD.
  • Actively seek to build stronger in-person relationships. Those who have ADHD thrive better in strong communities and have those around them who love, protect and care for them.
  • Go on a digital diet. Work with others in your household to create tech house rules that purposefully limit the amount of time available to spend on digital devices. 
  • Delete the apps from your phone that are the hardest for you to resist. Having extra barriers in place that increase access friction to apps or websites, decreases the easy access to the mini-Dopamine hits. 

In the above video, Dr Gabor Mate talks about the conditions that impact the development of children that lead to ADHD (and impulse regulation circulation and capacity).

In the below videos, Dr Hallowell talks about changing the narrative from disability and disorder to a fascinating trait. In the book he wrote alongside Dr Ratey (ADHD 2.0), he talks about ADHD being a person’s superpower.

He views ADHD as having a racing car brain with bicycle breaks. A fabulous analogy that helps those with ADHD to find ways to maximise their superpower.

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ADHD 2.0

ADHD 2.0 – Edward M. Hallowell, MD and John J. Ratey, MD

by AttentionBook Reviews

Although this book is not, technically, a cyberpsychology-related book, it’s included here as ADHD is commonly linked to online addictions.

As the doctors explain, those with ADHD are 5 to 10 times more likely to have some sort of addiction. 

If you, or your child, has ADHD or is suspected of having ADHD, then this is a book that is worth reading. 

As both authors are psychiatrists who have ADHD and treat those with the same condition, they write from both personal experience and from a scientific therapeutic perspective.

Their perspective on what ADHD is – how it is a super-power, rather than a pathology can help to reframe how you view and optimise the strengths of the condition while minimising the tougher sides of living with the condition.

CBT, narrative psychology NLP and positive psychology are all therapeutic interventions that have their basis in changing how we view and talk about our lived experience.

That is what this book can do for you.

By explaining what is going on in your brain and giving you a new vocabulary to understand what it means for you, you will have more tools to help empower you to take back control of your habits and pitfalls that seem to be a constant stumbling block for you. 

So, this is why this book is included with other recommended books. 

Below are a number of videos of the authors explaining more about their book and their specialities.

Find out more about Edward M. Hallowell, MD

You can visit his website here and his YouTube channel here.

Find out more about John J. Ratey, MD

You can visit his website here and find out more about his research.

Book Review Related Articles
Stolen Focus Article Header

Stolen Focus – Johann Hari

by AttentionBook Reviews

Johann Hari’s book is a summary of three years of research and interviewing specialists in a number of academic areas. The mission of his book is to investigate how technology is changing our ability to focus and pay attention.

Over the course of three years Johann Hari interviews a number of ‘experts’ in various disciplines, in an attempt to understand why and how our attention and focus have been ‘stolen’. 

The book provides extensive insights into what is happening to our attention and focus and worth a read if you want to gain some understanding of how technology is changing our brain structures and how we interact with the world around us.

His book begins with the trigger for why he started down the path of investigating why and how our focus has been stolen by technology. 

The research, and content of his book, investigate both sides of the coin, namely factors that have impacted our ability to resist the onslaught of technology and how tech giants are using technology to manipulate and use our attention for their own ends. 

Although he does often suggest that his interviewees are e.g. ‘arguably the world’s leading expert’ or ‘one of the leading experts in the world’, it is important to note that there are a number of experts in each of these academic and scientific areas who may be just as knowledgeable than those he has interviewed. 

The insights from the experts that Johann Hari brings into the public domain do give us a much clearer understanding of how technology is changing the way we work, play and live. The warnings are useful to note and consider when making decisions around technology use. The solutions he suggests, however, seem a little simplistic and do not seem to address the underlying issues e.g. locking your phone in a safe with a timer seems more like a ‘bandaid solution’ than a potential tool that can be used to change overall behaviour.  

Below are a number of interviews and talks that Johann Hari has given about his book ‘Stolen Focus’. A large portion of what he talks about in his book are covered in these interviews. 

In a blog post earlier this year, a review was done of his book based on a Guardian article write-up. The blog focussed on attention, rather than focus. You can read a bit more about this in the blog post.

You can find out more about his book Stolen Focus including some additional notes and snippets to his interviews on the Stolen Focus website. 

About Johann Hari:

Johann Hari is a journalist and author. You can read more about him on his official website. 

His book Stolen Focus is one of four that he has authored. 

Book Review Related Articles
Capturing Our Attention

The Capturing of our Attention

by Attention

An article by Johann Hari in The Guardian is a review of the research he has done while interviewing a number of experts in the field of attention. Within the article he states that ‘there is strong evidence that stress and exhaustion ruin your attention’ and ‘about 35% of workers feel they can never switch off their phones because their boss might email them at any time of day or night’.

He suggests that a ‘digital detox’ doesn’t actually work for the medium or longer-term (which I agree with). He does, however, suggest two better solutions could be a) implementing ‘the right to disconnect’ allowing workers to determine what is reasonable in after-hours work-based connectivity and b) forcing tech companies to change how they operate and make a profit. 

Although I am sure he highlights a number of other insights and solutions within his book (released later this week: 6th January 2022) that covers the research he’s done on attention, but I would suggest that we need to take a more active, personal role in managing our own attention, rather than subcontracting the responsibility to the government and tech companies. 

This is especially important for those who use technology to fulfil their job function. We need to recognise that the technology we use is changing how we think and how we process information. Technology is capturing our attention and reducing our ability to focus. Both personal and work-based notifications can distract us. Another article from December 2020, highlights research on the impact of notifications points out that, the cognitive effort required to ignore a notification can be mentally draining – wondering what they want and thinking about it until replying.

Technology is capturing our attention and reducing our ability to focus. Both personal and work-based notifications can distract us. In another article from December 2020, highlighting research on the impact of notifications, points out that the cognitive effort required to ignore a notification can be mentally draining. If you receive a notification and can’t reply for a while, you end up wondering what your friend has to say and think about it until replying.

In his book ‘The Shallows’, Nicolas Carr showcases how dependent we have voluntarily become on technology and how technology is constantly rewiring our (neuroplastic) brains. 

Digital detoxes provide a temporary salve to our technology habits. Long-term tech habits, however, require conscientious, continuous steps being taken every day to make a more permanent change to how we engage with technology. 

With technology becoming such a key part of our daily living, our attention is being eroded by the use of the same technology that enables us to be more ‘in-tune’ with others and the world around us.  We need to become more strategic and tactical in what we allow our attention to be focussed on. 

Our brains have limited ability to process the bombardment of incoming stimuli from all of our senses. This is because, the attention that we give to specific stimuli is associated with a process of ‘selection’ i.e. what we pay attention to determines how we allocate our cognitive resources.

This is efficiently demonstrated in a study by an experiment involving ‘The Monkey Business Illusion’. If you haven’t seen this before, it may surprise you how little you notice the first time you watch the video.

A number of other experiments have also been conducted, such as that of Simons and Levin (1998) on change blindness. The experiment showed how few people truly take note of the appearance of a stranger asking them directions and, therefore, how much we truly pay attention to.

A few theories help us to understand more about how our attention works:

  1. Limited Capacity Theory: suggests that the amount of cognitive processing resources allocated to attention is finite.
  2. Multiple Resource Theory: suggests different pools of cognitive resources process different types of incoming stimuli e.g. one pool allocated to sound, another to sight and another to touch.
  3. Attentional Spotlight Theory: is where our cognitive effort is focussed on what our eyes (or our ears) are registering. This can either be concentrated on a small area or lightly spread over a larger area. This theory suggests we can control what we are paying attention to.

Our attention can shift, depending on its meaningfulness to us. Think of those times when we are in the middle of a conversation and we hear our name in another conversation. Our attention shifts dramatically to hear what is being said in the other conversation to the point that we are no longer listening to the person talking to us. 

We do need to recognise that the technology we use is changing how we think, our attention capacity and what we focus on. This directly impacts our levels of productivity and effectiveness within the workplace. Our workplace norms, technological business models and societal norms encourage us to spend as much time as possible in front of a screen. It is up to us as individuals to take back control of our technology use. 

Start with small changes. 

  • Turn off all as many notifications as you are able to – even starting with turning off the notifications from one app every day 
  • Take scheduled tech breaks each day and use the time to do something else completely different – pick up a book, go for a walk, head out into the garden, start a new (non-tech) hobby. Start with short chunks of time and make them longer as you get use to time away from screens
  • Aim to call or meet up with one person a week rather than send them a message 
  • Don’t put your phone on the table when meeting up with someone – put it in your bag if you have one with you
  • Don’t look at your phone during mealtimes – use that time to talk to someone else or focus on the food you are eating
  • Try leaving your phone in a room where you don’t sleep at night – try keeping a notepad by your bed and start writing down things you are grateful for or a ‘to do’ list each evening &/or morning.

Creating good tech habits is like creating good eating or exercise habits. It takes energy, determination, and persistence. There is no ‘silver bullet’ to this and like asking the food industry to stem the tide of obesity, trying to get the tech industry to reduce our reliance on tech is probably not the solution we would hope it would be.

Wendy Suzuki, a neuroscientist who studies the effects of exercise on our brain, has shown that long-term exercise can help us with improving our attention.

A great reason to use a scheduled ‘tech break’ for increasing the exercise you do.

Slightly outside of the realm of the topic of attention, other benefits of exercise on the brain is improved pre-frontal cortex and hippocampus functioning. 

The prefrontal cortex is the ‘work-horse’ of the brain. It is where information is held, processed and where risks are assessed and decisions are made. An interesting fact about the prefrontal cortex is that it only fully matures around 25 years old – which helps to explain why younger people are prone to making riskier life-decisions.

The hippocampus is where spatial and some longer term memory  is stored. Studies done on London Taxi drivers have shown larger than average sized hippocampus, which is due to their having to know every street in London, how to navigate there from memory. 

If you are interested, you can watch the longer version of the talk here.

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Making Time Off

Making Time Off Predictable – And Required

by AttentionProductivityResearch
Extracts and summary of the research: 'Making Time off Predictable and Required'.

Research Authors: Leslie A. Perlow and Jessica L. Porter (October 2009)

Key quotes: 

  • “Responsiveness breeds the need for more responsiveness”
  • “When people are always “on,” responsiveness becomes ingrained in the way they work, expected by clients and partners, and even institutionalized in performance metrics”
  • “Our experiments with time off resulted in more open dialogue among team members…[and] sparked new processes that enhanced the teams’ ability to work most efficiently and effectively”
  • “Compared with those not participating in the experiments, people on time-off teams reported higher job satisfaction, greater likelihood that they could imagine a long-term career at the firm, and higher satisfaction with work/life balance”
  • “Consultants and other professionals can provide the highest standards of service and still have planned, uninterrupted time off”
  • “The payoff… [is] about preserving a strong, engaged pool of talent and, ultimately, cultivating productive work processes for the long term”

Below is a summary of the article from the Harvard Business Review: 

BCG ran a number of predictable time-off experiments with their consultants on a number of projects over the course of a year. Initially, the consultants and project leaders were sceptical and feared career progression and team member retribution. Once the benefits of completely ‘switching off’ from work (and work-based technology) either one evening a week or one full day a week, the consultants noticed how refreshed they were when they recommenced their work. They also found they communicated more and created more efficiencies within their work processes. Additionally, their overall work-life balance improved. 

The researchers found that it is essential that everyone in the team take off the same ‘type of time’, to reduce perceptions of unfairness. This is also more conducive to team members protecting the time that they and their colleagues have off. 

They also found that having ‘time-off goals’ were an important part of the success of the experiment in addition to open dialogue, with regular weekly check-ins – where team members were accountable to and supportive of each other in how to improve their ability to take the required time off. These discussions shifted more towards “how work was being done [rather] than on what work was being done” and towards “priorities, expectations, and problems”, rather than just the problems they were encountering. 

Implementing a work culture or norm that encourages teams to experiment with different processes, allows previously unquestioned ways of doing things. The option of transforming processes into more efficient, effective and integrative ways of working can also increase team collaboration and learning. 

The change in work culture needs to be underpinned with support, openness and encouragement from senior levels. The measurement and rewarding of employee performance also needs adjusting to include: how well team members communicate and maintain personal commitments while delivering against project needs; and how well senior team members model having a sustainable career while respecting personal and team members personal commitments. 

Read the original article here

If you are unable to access the web page, you can read a PDF of the article here. 

Return to the main Research Page
Nir Eyal Article Image

Indistractable & Hooked – Nir Eyal

by AttentionBook Reviews

In his latest book, Nir walks through how technology is making us more and more distractable and has numerous suggestions on how we can claw back time in every area of our lives. 

Nir is also the author of Hooked, a book that has been widely read throughout the tech industry. It is an insightful read into how technology is purposefully engineered to capture your attention and keep you hooked. 

Reading through the book will help you to understand the mechanisms that are used within technology and help you to find personal strategies to unhook yourself from the technology you use. 

You can read a more extensive review of both Hooked and Indistractable in this Guardian article. If you aren’t able to access the article, you can read a PDF of the article here.

About the Author:

Nir is an author and lecturer who specialises in behavioural engineering, using behavioural science that creates habit forming products. Nir’s philosophy is that tech companies should not be regulated, but rather it is up to the individual to regulate their own behaviour around their technology use. You can read more about him at his website or follow him on Twitter.

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Deep Work Article Header

Deep Work – Cal Newport

by AttentionBook Reviews

Cal Newport’s main hypothesis in this book is that ‘the ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.’

In this book, Cal dives into the research around how our use of digital media is reducing our ability to concentrate and focus on important work. He provides the evidence around how digital technology is changing how we think, but also ways to shift ourselves back to a place where we rekindle our ability to think and work ‘deeply’. 

About the Cal Newport:

Cal Newport is an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown University, USA. He has published a number of non-fiction books and conducts a lot of research on the interaction of humans and technology. 

You can find out more about him on his website.

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