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Comment by emef | Hacker News Reader

Anybody tried a fidget spinner? My wife has adhd and likes the idea but we haven't ordered one. Are these interesting for 5 minutes and then shelved? or do they have some lasting appeal?

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My mother in law suggested that we get one to see if our daughter will do that instead of sucking her thumb when tired

Other night she had thumb in her mouth, fidget spinner in the other hand, so I'm chalking that up as a fail

They're pretty cheap ($5 or so), so it's a pretty low cost experiment if your wife is curious

Give her 2 to play with. Will turn pro.

she's gonna figure out how to use her toes

My 6th grader tells me they have jumped the shark at her school already.

They exploded in to popularity at my office. And if my coworkers are all about the spinners they are def no longer cool.

I happened to be playing with one when this article popped up in my RSS feed. It's my sons but it's on my desk because I tried repairing the cracked frame with super glue, for about the 5th time. It still works with the cracked frame and the repair didn't take this time because I mindlessly starting playing with it while the glue was still drying. We've had 3 around our house for about 2 weeks and everyone that lives or visits, in age groups from 60's down to 10 months have fidgeted with them almost every time they come across one.

Cyanoacrylate can't handle nonporous materials - as you're seeing, it dries so brittle that an incautious glance will snap it.

Try epoxy instead; it's slower to cure and smells funny, but produces a much stronger bond, and doesn't have the same problems bearing mechanical loads. I like J-B Weld and J-B Kwik, which are strong and resilient as hell (you can fix tractor engines with them!) and double as a low-temperature casting material for additive repairs, but for what you're dealing with here, the cheap Loctite stuff on the drugstore blister card should do you.

Or just sand/gouge the mating surfaces. The rougher they are, the more you can get away with the "wrong" adhesive.

With metal or almost any plastic, you can do what you like to the surface, and cyanoacrylate still won't hold all that well - if you (correctly) use a very thin layer, it'll last longer, but that's not the same thing as really being reliable. Quicker and easier just to epoxy it once and be done.

I laser cut one with my niece[1] thought it was cool, and ordered one. It was easily worth the $10.

[1]I try to spend as much time as I can teaching my niece how to make things. She had a spinner, and j wanted to show her that she could easily just make one too.

I've had one in my office for several weeks now and haven't gotten tired of it yet. It does seem to be close to the Platonic ideal of "fiddly desk things while my code compiles" where the appeal might not wear off.

I had one on infini-loan from a non-fidgety coworker, but then I changed desks. I didn't want to outright steal their spinner so I've gone back to playing with pens. Haven't yet felt the need to go buy a spinner, pens fill that niche for me nicely.

I think the fidget cube is better than a spinner for actual adhd fidgeting.

Or a fidget pen

I have a fidget toy from fidgetland.com that I really like, but I haven't tried the spinner. It seems to help decently with my ADHD (I tend to bite my lip or tap my desk a lot without it).

Fidget spinners seem worse. You just hold it and it spins. That's not what "fidgeting" is, since you aren't constantly moving. I don't think it would work nearly as well. It's not supposed to grab your attention, it's supposed to help you keep focus on something else.

You can buy a dirt cheap one from ebay, slow shipping from china, for a couple of dollars.

I bought one for my son. He's not so interested (he still has small hands which doesn't help). Turns out I use it every day.

See also the glitter bottles I built with him. He liked making them - lots of mess - but I'm the one who spends time watching them.

Fun fact: marketing toys as a cure for ADHD isn't new to this trend. It could be literally any stimulus. Yo-yo, etc.

The funny thing is that it may be marketing with a point.

A lot of ADHD kids spend too much time getting schelped around and don't play well. If you ever volunteer at school you can see it when they are young.

Reminded me of active dogs who don't get walked. If needs aren't met, they adapt in weird ways.

I have ADHD. While the fidget spinner is fun, it is not really useful. It is too involved, doesn't have much tactile variety, distracting to the people around you.

I love the fidget cube though. (Got it from antsy labs)

In principle I'd guess it'd work. I have absolutely no idea as to whether it does anything for people with actually illness, but I have a similar thing that (not sure how to word it) is very ?distracting?

I've kept a variety of fidget toys on my desk for decades. These are very simple, and the gyro sensation is nice and interesting.

I think part of the fascination is the gyro sensation, and few children are exposed to gyroscopes nowadays, like a TEDCO gyroscope (http://amzn.to/2qZsS1t).

Wife bought me one months ago, I really enjoy it. I like interacting with the physics of it as much as anything else.

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