https://www.cdc.gov/adhd/diagnosis/index.html

Diagnostic Criteria of ADHD as per DSM 5: (Must persist for 6 months, 6 of these if 16 or younger, 5 of these if 17 or older)

(1) Often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, at work, or with other activities.

(2) Often has trouble holding attention on tasks or play activities.

(3) Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly.

(4) Often does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish schoolwork, chores, or duties in the workplace (e.g., loses focus, side-tracked).

(5) Often has trouble organizing tasks and activities.

(6) Often avoids, dislikes, or is reluctant to do tasks that require mental effort over a long period of time (such as schoolwork or homework).

(7) Often loses things necessary for tasks and activities (e.g. school materials, pencils, books, tools, wallets, keys, paperwork, eyeglasses, mobile telephones).

(8) Is often easily distracted.

(9) Is often forgetful in daily activities.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10756502/

Results revealed that short-form video addiction not only directly impacted academic procrastination but also placed indirect effect on academic procrastination through attentional control.

Academic Procrastination:

Arguably 1, 4 and 6

Lower Ability to Retain Attention:

Arguably 2, 3, 6 and 8

…

That’s just one study.

You can rather easily find dozens of studies that conclude that significant TikTok usage lowers your attention span, lowers your ability to maintain attention/focus, lowers your academic performance, is distracting in and of itself, is even more distracting because TikTok is addictive via dopamine reinforcement conditioning.

Tiktok recently got very angry when documents were made public showing that they know their product is addictive, and that this is done by design.

https://www.npr.org/2024/10/11/g-s1-27676/tiktok-redacted-documents-in-teen-safety-lawsuit-revealed

TikTok determined the precise amount of viewing it takes for someone to form a habit: 260 videos. After that, according to state investigators, a user “is likely to become addicted to the platform.”

TikTok’s own research states that “compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety,” according to the suit.

In addition, the documents show that TikTok was aware that “compulsive usage also interferes with essential personal responsibilities like sufficient sleep, work/school responsibilities, and connecting with loved ones.”

…

I am not going to say that nature, ie genetics, plays absolutely no factor in the likelihood of developing ADHD. It certainly plays a significant role.

But to say you cannot cause and/or exacerbate ADHD via nurture, ie the activities you engage in and the environment you are a part of … that’s absolutely ludicrous, just empirically false.

ADHD diagnoses are on the rise, significant TikTok use exacerbates many of the behavior patterns which literally are the diagnostic criteria for ADHD, thus increased usage of TikTok is causally connected to increasing levels of ADHD in the population.