Rates of adult ADHD have jumped in the last two decades. Researchers are exploring whether 24/7 use of technology may be contributing.
Published January 5, 2024
More adults than ever before are struggling with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. One big suspect: technology is taxing their brains.
While nearly 10 percent of children are diagnosed with the disorder, recent meta-analysis of numerous studies show that nearly 6.8 percent of adults have ADHD—up from 4.4 percent in 2003.
“That’s about 366 million adults worldwide currently living with ADHD, which is roughly the population of the U.S.,” says Russell Ramsay, co-founder of the Penn Adult ADHD Treatment and Research program for the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
ADHD is a chronic neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized as a person having difficulties with inattentiveness, hyperactivity/lack of impulse control, or both. It is considered a neurodevelopmental condition because one’s “genes and early development predispose one to have struggles with it,” says Lidia Zylowska, a psychiatrist at the University of Minnesota Medical School and author of the book, The Mindfulness Prescription for Adult ADHD.
There are hypotheses that explain the growing prevalence of the adult condition, including greater awareness and previously missed diagnoses. But one understudied environmental factor may be technology-related ADHD.
In children and adults alike, symptoms of ADHD can range from “very mild to very severe,” says Jill RachBeisel, a physician and chief of psychiatry at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
Causes of ADHD are not entirely known, but the most recent research shows that genetics play a significant role. “There are also environmental factors that can result in ADHD,” notes RachBeisel.
The part technology plays
Among the most understudied environmental factors of adult-related ADHD is the overuse of technology. Some studies have been published on the subject, but research is still ongoing.
A study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that frequent digital media use involving social media, gaming, texting, and streaming movies, music, or TV increases one’s risk of developing ADHD symptoms by nearly 10 percent. Other studies have measured the connection between technology and ADHD, including one that explores how technology use varies between men and women and research that measures the mental health consequences of frequent technology use. A large population study shows that to prevent attentional deficits related to technology use, one should limit smartphone use to 60 minutes a day.
“It is legitimate to look at the possibility of acquired attention deficit,” says John Ratey, a physician, neuropsychiatrist, and an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He notes that people today are pushed to multitask and are bombarded by constant technological stimulation and screen addiction. “These could potentially lead to a shorter attention span,” he says.
The link between technology use and attention problems could also be attributed to the fact that people who constantly use technology have fewer opportunities to allow their brain to rest in its default mode.
Elias Aboujaoude, a behavioral psychiatrist and chief of the Anxiety Disorders Section at Stanford University School of Medicine, explains that “for a long time, the association between ADHD and heavy online use was a chicken-and-egg question in our field: Do people become heavy online consumers because they have ADHD and online life betters suits their attention span, or do they develop ADHD as a result of excessive online consumption?” Clinical experience and research, he says, “increasingly suggest that the latter scenario may be more relevant.”
His Stanford colleague, popular neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, has also arrived at the same conclusion, telling his Huberman Lab listeners that “smartphone use can induce adult ADHD.”
Though some scholars aren’t as sure, if technology use really does cause ADHD in adults, Ramsay says it would have significant implications. “Because the current understanding of the disorder is a neurodevelopmental syndrome,” he explains, “this sort of ‘acquired’ ADHD…(would have) a different source and may require different interventions and support.”
Zylowska says technology may also exacerbate existing ADHD symptoms in some people. “Excessive technology may worsen pre-existing ADHD or train an otherwise non-ADHD brain to feel scattered,” she explains.
A disorder that’s often overlooked
Regardless of what causes or contributes to ADHD in each affected individual, it’s a disorder that is often overlooked in children and may not be identified until a person reaches adulthood. Currently, in order to be diagnosed as a disorder, specific symptoms must be identified in someone by age 12, according to the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) – the authoritative guide physicians use to diagnose and treat mental health conditions. (The determent age was changed from 7 to 12 between the 4th and 5th editions of the DSM.)
But that’s not to say one must be diagnosed by age 12; only that symptoms need to be present by that age, even if such symptoms are identified retroactively years or decades later by reviewing old journals or teacher’s notes, interviewing family members, or from a patient’s own recollection of childhood memories, as discovered with the help of a trained psychiatrist.
“Sometimes ADHD is not identified until someone is older because symptoms were missed in younger years or were masked by other factors,” says Margaret Sibley, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
Such factors range from parents or teachers failing to recognize symptoms or a child developing workarounds or simply not struggling enough to warrant concern.
“It is not uncommon to have an inattentive child that is not disruptive in the classroom and thus overlooked,” says Zylowska. Fixed schedules, structured activities and help provided by parents can also make it easy to miss the disorder until a person loses such structure and help once they reach adulthood.
RachBeisel explains that when ADHD is missed and the child grows up and leaves the house and loses the assistance they had at home, they sometimes begin to struggle or “notice they have to work two to three times harder to achieve the same level of success as their peers.”
ADHD symptoms in adults
Regardless of when it’s diagnosed, ADHD tends to look different in adults than it does in children. Craig Surman, a physician and psychiatrist who runs the adult ADHD research program at Massachusetts General Hospital, says that though the impulsive and hyperactive nature of the disorder usually diminishes in adulthood, “the inattentive traits often persist.”
Adults are also often better at controlling their restlessness and are usually more disciplined to get something done, notes RachBeisel. Because of this, the disorder usually manifests differently across various age groups.
“Where a child may not be able to sit calmly in a classroom and continuously gets out of their seat, an adult may be very impatient at red lights or waiting in grocery store lines,” RachBeisel says. “And where a child may impatiently raise their hand in class and disrupt the flow, an adult may interrupt other’s conversations.”
Other factors impacting ADHD in adults
But it may not be as simple as symptoms simply being missed during one’s childhood as some factors, beyond technology use, may also be contributing to or causing ADHD symptoms in adults.
Ratey, the Harvard neuropsychiatrist, says that hormonal changes relating to menstruation or menopause are another such example and commonly bring out latent ADHD symptoms in women.
“Adult women are one of the most undiagnosed demographics of ADHD and are often given anti-depressants and anxiety medication when in reality, they are suffering symptoms related to having ADHD,” he explains.
The tendency of ADHD symptoms to overlap with other mental health conditions isn’t unique to women.
“In adults, ADHD rarely travels alone,” says Zylowska. “Just like a fever can have different explanations, attention problems can be due to different reasons.” She says that behaviors and factors such as stress, side effects of medication, and insufficient sleep can also make focusing difficult. “Similarly, other mental or physical health symptoms including anxiety, depression, sleep apnea, age-related cognitive changes, and thyroid problems may mimic ADHD,” she says.
What to do?
There are many ways of getting help once ADHD has been properly identified.
“Untreated ADHD is not a benign condition and often comes with other problems,” says Mark Stein, a physician and director of the ADHD and Related Disorders Program at Seattle Children’s Hospital. “So, my most important piece of advice is to get a good evaluation.”
RachBeisel agrees and notes that after ADHD is diagnosed, “it’s a very treatable condition.” Treatments often include medication or therapeutic approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy. “Speaking with a professional who diagnoses and treats ADHD can determine if medication or specific non-medication therapies may be helpful,” offers Surman.
Regarding technology’s impact on ADHD, Ramsay says that “adults with ADHD often must take active steps to develop a healthy relationship with technology,” which may include spending less time on one’s smartphone.
If measures are taken to properly treat or to work around the disorder, there’s no reason a person dealing with ADHD can’t survive and even thrive.
“ADHD has its challenges, but it also comes with tremendous gifts that include creativity, enthusiasm, curiosity, loyalty, and project-oriented focus when something is of interest,” Ratey says. “It’s about finding the right job, the right friends, and the right partner to build on the strengths of the ADHD brain to make it soar.”