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Comment by vkk8 | Hacker News Reader

ADHD isn't a discrete trait, it simply means that "you are in the lower x percentile of the population in the ability to concentrate". Even people whose concentration skills are close to the mean of the population can feel like they "have ADHD" and be diagnosed with one if they eg. work a job that requires more than average amounts of concentration which they don't have. For a good layman's discussion on this, see: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-mo... (for people who are not familiar with SSC, the writer is a psychiatrist by profession so he should know this stuff).

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> ADHD isn't a discrete trait, it simply means that "you are in the lower x percentile of the population in the ability to concentrate".

This is an oversimplification to the point of being misleading.

Scott links to several sources to support his claims and most of them are quite clear that ADHD is a whole bunch of symptoms, a lack of concentration being just one of them. For example:

“DSM-IV field trials used a C-GAS score of ≤60 (which implies impairment requiring specific treatment) and determined that five ADHD symptoms were required to be present to reach this cut-off. To avoid false positives the number was increased to six or more symptoms of inattention or hyperactivity/impulsivity.‘

As an example, some people with ADHD have symptoms where their biggest detrimental issue is hyperfocus - their problem is literally that they concentrate too much rather than too little. Simplifying the condition as “ lower x percentile of the population in the ability to concentrate" discounts these people, as it does the people whose principal problem is hyperactivity or other aspects.

I just want to add to that, that hyperfocus isn't directed, it just happens. That's why it can mess up the lives of people with the issue - directing attention to a problem that is currently important, from a rational perspective, is almost impossible.

I think this is a problem with GP's comment, not with the original SSC article. It really does seem like ADHD is just "lowest x percent of the population by conscientiousness" which isn't exactly what GP wrote, and a bunch of people replied to GP explaining the differences between conscientiousness and what he wrote.

No. ADHD criteria and low conscientiousness behaviors overlap. Conscientiousness tests combine effort and outcomes usually. Many ADHD criteria are about difficulty.

I don't understand. Is "difficulty" some axis that's independent of "effort" and "outcomes"? Is conscientiousness defined to be the result a person achieves on a particular test, and can you provide a link to that test?

Do you often leave comments like "No. PCR-covid and pulse-oximiter-covid are different diseases. One of them involves having virus genomes in your body and the other one involves having low blood oxygen?"

Difficulty and effort are independent. Some people try to do hard things. Some people don't try to do easy things. Outcomes depend on difficulty, effort, and other factors.

Talking about measuring conscientiousness means part of the Big 5 model usually. Did you have in mind a different system for assigning people conscientiousness percentiles?

Do you often say COVID-19 really does seem like the lowest x percent of the population by SpO2?

What if I told you that ADHD actually makes it likely for you to concentrate much more on something that engages you than a typical person, to the point that you almost forget about eating, sleeping or going to the toilet? Having a tendency to hyperfocus is a pretty common ADHD trait.

It's really not that simple. Squishing it all down to "ability to concentrate" isn't just an oversimplification; it misses the point entirely. Having difficulties with concentration on non-engaging tasks is just one of the possible symptoms.

Exactly. People fundamentally misunderstand it in this very common way and it's such a shame. It's really the difficult in ability to regulate attention which includes both keeping your attention on something (i.e concentration) and your ability to take your attention off something and shift it to something else (i.e hyperfocus).

I do not fundamentally misunderstand this. That would be weird considering my own ADHD combined type diagnosis in the severe range.

Just saying.

Hah wrote that on mobile, looks like it's missing a part.

ADHD Is on a spectrum, which is what I wish people would understand. My diagnosis is in the severe range, and I'm 100% useless without medication. Unable to concentrate or be on time even if my life depended on it.

Ah so I just have to concentrate harder!

Geez why didn't anyone just tell me this, would have been a lot easier

But have you tried creating a list?! /s

Which list software/paper/pen should I use ?

(Semi-serious question even though /s because topic)

A physical journal, using the bullet journal method is what works for me. It is hard to stick to it the first few months and require a good amount of effort but that's what I've been the most persistent with.

The book "The bullet journal method" from Ryder Carroll was a good introduction to understand how the method works (try to ignore the preachy tone): https://bulletjournal.com/pages/book.

I now have >6 months of journaling, with only a few missing weeks and I can say it has been very helpful to organize my time and mind.

Regarding the type of notebook or pen, it really does not matter, you just need something you enjoy using. I personally use Faber-Castell pens I got for a few cents each (in €) because I like their feeling in my hand, and an idena notebook because they have a lot of pages and I already had a few of them around my house (~6€ each).

>Even people whose concentration skills are close to the mean of the population can feel like they "have ADHD" and be diagnosed with one if they eg. work a job that requires more than average amounts of concentration which they don't have

It's a requirement for diagnosis that it affects multiple domains of your life and not limited to just a single domain, so no.

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