Do Geeks Suffer from AD/HD

I like to start with a really stupid question. It is bound to get better from there. Speaking as a Geek, or as at least half-Geek, I have a short attention span. I certainly don’t suffer from it. Maybe other people suffer from it when I tell them to get to the subject.

But, of course, this title is really to mock the people who say that lots of children “suffer from AD/HD.” The children don’t suffer any more than I do. Their teachers suffer. Their parents may suffer. But the kids don’t suffer until somebody tries to cure them.

I looked at some recent comments from a currently practicing board-certified Internal Medicine physician in a tech community. His practice includes lots of Geeks. He says this:

“I am always amazed at the number of people that mention to me that their attention span is poor. Frequently they will wonder if they have ADD. Sometimes they will even complain about the inability to stay awake during long meetings or stay focused on non-computer tasks.”

These Geeks in his practice probably start at close to $50K and go up to $100K with experience and responsibilities. You call this suffering?

Maybe you could call it suffering if you think there is something wrong with you. I suppose that these Geeks might be said to suffer a bit from the label of Attention Deficit Disorder. And from the idea that since the culture has labeled something a disorder, it must have some sort of a cure.

The doctor points out that these Geeks have no problem staying focused on their computer work. The doctor is focusing on reality rather than on verbal claims made popular by the culture.

I think almost all instances of “attention deficit” occur when you don’t maintain focus on something that somebody else wants you to focus on. In the Geek story above, somebody else is trying to set the focus. Furthermore, somebody else is setting the requirements for attention span. I don’t think this is a Geek problem at all. So I will state is as a general principle:

If you let somebody else run your brain, you will let somebody else run it off track.

Now, back to my short attention span. I used a language trick there. The only way you could interpret short is as relative to some other attention spans. You probably assumed the context of other people. But I meant the context of expectations. And that was the problem the Geeks had, too.

Since people schedule meetings (and lectures) to last an hour or more, they must expect that the normal attention span is an hour or more. It is hard to do good research on attention span, but what has been done suggests that the typical attention span (during a lecture, for example) is closer to ten minutes. From observing my own behavior, I think my attention span is about ten minutes. That’s when I am focusing on content that is unfamiliar and takes a lot of cognitive processing. As in lectures and meetings.

So why am I not bothered by an attention span that doesn’t match the span of meetings and lectures? Because I take that into account when I plan what I will do. As most people learn to do before they get to my age.

There is more to say on this. But I will save it for another time. Wouldn’t want to run readers over their attention spans. Even if they are not Geeks.