Adderall is similar. It makes people feel a lot more productive, but research on its effectiveness[0] seems to show that, at best, we get only a mild improvement in productivity, and marked deterioration of cognitive abilities.
The ADHD was caught early, and treated, but the dyslexia was not. He thought he was a moron, for much of his early life, and his peers and employers did nothing to discourage that self-diagnosis.
Since he learned of his dyslexia, and started treating it, he has been an engineer at Intel, for most of his career (not that I envy him, right now).
Their benefits when used as intended are solidly documented in research literature.
If legitimate research had found it to be drastically better, that study would definitely have been published in a big way.
Unscientifically, I personally know quite a number of folks that sincerely believed that they couldn’t function without it, but have since learned that they do far better on their own. I haven’t met a single one that actually had their productivity decline (after an adjustment period, of course), after giving up Adderall. In fact, I know several, that have had their careers really take off, after giving it up.
"Antibiotics don't improve your life, but can damage your health" would likely be the outcome on 13 randomly selected healthy individuals. But do the same study on 13 people with a bacterial infection susceptible to antibiotics and your results will be vastly different.
They'll need to learn, the same way I see lots of people learn.
It's been around long enough, though, that all the Adderall-eating people should have established a Gattaca-like "elite," with all us "undermen," scrabbling around at their feet.
Not sure why that never happened...
It's not that they make you superhuman - I don't think I'm any "smarter" on them. It's just that without them, my "productive" bursts would be at really random times (11PM or 2AM), and make it very hard to fit into a "normal" schedule with the rest of society (I would frequently fall asleep in classes or meetings).
So it's more that it allows you to "rearrange" the same (or slightly larger) amount of work but into a more reasonable, traditional schedule. And for certain things, helps more than that. But it's not a miracle drug by any means.
It seems like that with such small groups and effects you could run the same “study” again and again until you get the result that you initially desired.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3489818/table/tbl1/
People without ADHD take it, believing that it makes them “super[wo]men.”
That said, I'll leave the conclusions about whether it's valuable for those with ADHD to the mental health professionals.
A lot of it. Other stuff, too, that makes it look like a cup of weak tea, but it’s been 45 years.
I’m pretty familiar with the illusion of productivity.
>I’m pretty familiar with the illusion of productivity
II do not have ADHD and I'm familiar with successfully using Aderrall for actual productivity. YMMV. Turns out not everyone's brain chemistry is the same.
I just make sure there's a place to go, if the wheels fall off.
Cheers.