Do Smartphones Give You ADHD?

Do Smartphones Give You ADHD?

"It seems that probably two hours a day on the phone would be the upper limit beyond which you would probably experience pretty severe attentional deficits" - AH

Phones capture all our attention into a small visual window. But there's so much going on inside it. You're scrolling through billions of bits of information. This is different from what humans are used to in the physical world. We usually get these bits through many different objects and periods of time

On your phone, you're getting all this visual stimulation and info that changes every few seconds. And your brain hates context switching. It stops you from getting meaningful work done.

So could this constant overwhelm of info give you ADHD? Yes.

What to do? There are hundreds of apps and techniques out there. But let's start with something simple: take phone breaks. When you find yourself using your phone, set a timer committing to not use your phone. This'll help not just in the moment, but later as well.

Not only do you physically put your phone aside, you also realize it's unnecessary. In fact, Andrew keeps his phone on airplane mode. Whenever he wants to focus, he just 'throws it to the attic'. So, right now, Set a timer for 30 minutes to restrict using your phone. If not now, at least some time later today.

I included the transcript at the bottom of this email. Otherwise, he talks about it in this part of the ADHD episode.

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"ADHD. And as a final point, I also want to mention something about technologies that a