I Should Learn to Use a Calendar: On Smartphones, AD/HD & Quality of Life

I hustled into Green Street Church aware that, if I was running late, it was only by a minute or two. The building seemed unusually quiet as I walked inside. A few seconds later, when I reached the room where the Institute for Dismantling Racism's monthly community caucuses begin, I understood why. There was no one there.

My next thought, “This is Thursday, right?” I pulled out my phone and hit its “wake up” button:

11:58

Thursday, July 18

Battery 96%

Yes, it was Thursday, and I was actually a couple minutes early. My next question: “Why am I the only one here?”

…and at this point having a smartphone begins to influence the sequence of events.

Maybe I was in the wrong place. I swiped my finger across the phone's screen to unlock it and tapped the email icon. I scrolled down through a week's worth of subject lines until I saw what I was looking for—Evite Invitation: IDR Community Caucusing—and opened the message.

where:

Green Street Church

The train of thought that followed went something like this:

Okay, I'm in the right place.

…and, yeah, I got the time right so, what the…

[Looking more closely at the phone's screen.]

Thursday, July 25, 2013

…and today is?

[Another finger-swipe—downward from the top edge of the screen—to reveal the phone's “notification area.” with current date]

Thu, Jul 18, 2013

Dangit!!

Hmmm… Maybe I should learn to use a calendar.

Consider what it would've taken to figure this out before I had a smart phone. Forget about looking at the email, and calling wouldn't have been an option. Since I hadn't phoned IDR's office before, the number wouldn't have been in my contact list. I would've needed to go upstairs to the office and—assuming anyone was there at lunchtime—ask if I was mistaken about the day/time/location.

Today, it took less than two minutes to figure out that I'd gotten the date wrong—I was a week early! Furthermore, had I chosen not to write a blog post, no one else need have known about it. For many, this might mean avoiding a minor inconvenience. However, given the frustration and embarrassment that accompanies such mishaps and their frequency for those of us living with AD/HD, this represents a noticeable improvement in quality of life.

Abuse of AD/HD Medication: Sensational News vs. Important Information

The following post began as an email message about an article published in the New York Times the first weekend of February. Apparently, I saved the message draft, but forgot to finish and send it. Upon finding it this afternoon, I thought the content more appropriate as a blog post, and I have edited it accordingly.

Schwarz, Alan. “Drown in a Stream of Prescriptions.” New York Times. February 3, 2013.

---

As someone who takes stimulant medication for AD/HD, I am ambivalent about this kind of media attention. Each person reads such an article with preexistent bias. For some it reinforces the belief that these medications are dangerous. For others it serves as evidence of fear-mongering and the stigmatization of mental ill-health by news media.

Here the subject is the abuse of stimulant medications prescribed for AD/HD, or perhaps, more broadly, the responsibility of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals for the health and safety of those in their care. However, regardless of the topic, so long as it is contentious, the same pattern ensues.

Each side selects a few facts to justify its position and to defend against the opposition. These selections have little to do with the information's relevance to the wider population. The driving question is “Will people react to this information with emotion?” As a result, the information chosen tends to concern only a few specific individuals. Information lacking sufficient emotional “punch,” even if relevant to far more people, goes unmentioned.

The rift between sides grows larger. Meaningful conversations about the issue become less common. The information that is useful and relevant to the most people gets the least circulation.

Great Website! …with a not-so-great RSS Feed

In the last year, I've become a bit of an RSS junkie. I've also developed some rather strong opinions on the nature of feed content.

It isn't that I didn't use RSS feeds before, but — aside from iGoogle page widgets for Lifehacker's headlines and the release notes for the latest version of Calibre — I couldn't find a natural place in my life to use a newsreader application.What changed? I got a smart phone. (My phone and newsreader app of choice are topics for another time.)

However, upon becoming a regular user of RSS feeds, I quickly acquired a sense for both good and not-so-good feeds. I also discovered that the quality of the content on a website can be surprisingly unhelpful for predicting the quality of newsfeed content.

LD OnLine is a good illustration.

The website, ldonline.org is excellent! It's hands down one of my favorites on the topic of learning differences, and I highly recommend it. The content is well organized and addresses a fairly wide variety of audiences. The design is clean and professional, yet still friendly and approachable. Are there points that I would take issue with? Of course, but most are ubiquitous interface issues I've learned to tolerate (or hide).

In concept, the primary RSS feed "LD OnLine Daily News" is equally good — noteworthy headlines about learning differences and special education from a variety of Internet news sources. The problem is implementation. These were the three latest items in the feed when I started writing this post. I reformatted things to fit into a blog post and added the character counts in the left margin.

Content within this box is from LD OnLine Daily News http://feeds.feedburner.com/ldonline/news?format=xml (Accessed 26 Jan 2012).

Brain Scans Spot Early Signs of Dyslexia
January 26, 2012 09:00

192 charsInstead of waiting for a child to experience reading delays, scientists now say they can identify the reading problem even before children start school, long before they become labeled as poor…

496 charsStay current on the latest LD and ADHD news by signing up today for our free LD NewsLine service. Each week, you'll receive an e-mail with approximately three to seven of the top news headlines on learning disabilities, ADHD, special education, and other issues. LD Newsline is also available as an RSS Feed. A weekly version of LD NewsLine is also available. Each LD NewsLine includes direct links to the publication in which the headlines appeared and short excerpts from the original articles.

Special Educators Borrow from Brain Studies
January 26, 2012 09:00

195 charsWhile some educators remain skeptical, brain research is slowly migrating from the lab into the classroom, both in predicting which students may have learning difficulties and intervening to help…

496 charsStay current on the latest LD and ADHD news by signing up today for our free LD NewsLine service. Each week, you'll receive an e-mail with approximately three to seven of the top news headlines on learning disabilities, ADHD, special education, and other issues. LD Newsline is also available as an RSS Feed. A weekly version of LD NewsLine is also available. Each LD NewsLine includes direct links to the publication in which the headlines appeared and short excerpts from the original articles.

Apps for Children with Dyslexia
January 26, 2012 09:00

193 charsThe parent of a second grader newly diagnosed with dyslexia wrote me asking if I knew of any apps that might help her son with reading and math. She'd searched and come up with nothing — and so…

496 charsStay current on the latest LD and ADHD news by signing up today for our free LD NewsLine service. Each week, you'll receive an e-mail with approximately three to seven of the top news headlines on learning disabilities, ADHD, special education, and other issues. LD Newsline is also available as an RSS Feed. A weekly version of LD NewsLine is also available. Each LD NewsLine includes direct links to the publication in which the headlines appeared and short excerpts from the original articles.

Even without the character counts, two things are readily apparent about the second paragraph of each item: (1) it's considerably longer than the first, and (2) it's the same in all three items. The character counts show that the second paragraph isn't just longer, it's more than 2½ times longer!

On closer scrutiny, I noticed two more issues. While the longer second paragraph is promoting LD Online's LD NewsLine service and encouraging the reader to sign up for the service, it doesn't provide a link to the signup page. Additionally, the fourth sentence — the one beginning A weekly version… — is redundant. The reader already learned, in the second sentence, the service sends a weekly email.

I'm really disappointed that such a great website has so many problems in its RSS feed. If the feed content anywhere near the same quality as the website content, I'd have an RSS widget listing those headlines on this blog.

NPR's Confused Response

Earlier this week, NPR sent the following response to my comment about a segment from "All Things Considered" last Friday:

from	npr_response@npr.org <npr_response@npr.org>
date	Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 12:17 PM
subject	Re: Real health conditions, skeptics, and satire... not funny. – Message ID:217142

Response to Message #217142:
Dear Shelley,

Thank you for contacting NPR.

We appreciate you sharing your concerns with us. We strive to offer the highest quality of news and information available. Listener feedback helps us to accomplish this goal.

We welcome both criticism and praise, and your thoughts will be taken into consideration.

Thank you for listening, and for your continued support of public broadcasting. For the latest news and information, visit NPR.org.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/12/23/132281484/fake-pills-can-work-even-if-patients-know-it
Sincerely,
Alan
NPR Services
202-513-3232
www.npr.org

Nice form letter folks, but I think you missed the point. My comment was about a piece from "All Things Considered," not a health news segment.

I wrote 'em back yesterday, and this time I included the url for the subject of my comment.

Real health conditions, skeptics, and satire... not funny.

I just sent NPR's "All Things Considered" the following comment concerning the satirical commercial for 'Placebo' at the end of yesterday's segment "This 'Placebo' Could Be The Drug For You."

As I listened to the brief intro to your satirical commercial for 'Placebo,' I thought, "This should be good."

My expectation quickly changed to sadness... Rickets? You realize this serious vitamin deficiency is still all too common in many parts of the world, right?

And then to offense... Attention deficit disorder? Both the American Psychiatric Association and the World Health Organization recognize this condition. Still, parents of children with ADD and adults with the condition endure jokes and skepticism.

Would "All Things Considered" have aired a satirical commercial that suggested 'Placebo' for anemia and schizophrenia? I don't think so. I expect NPR to present facts about misunderstood medical conditions, not contribute to skepticism and stigma by mocking.

My AD/HD Library

Books about AD/HD that I own:

Amen, Daniel G. Healing ADD: the breakthrough program that allows you to see and heal the six types of attention deficit disorder. New York: Berkeley, 2001.

Freed, Jeffrey and Laurie Parsons. Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World: unlocking the potential of your ADD child. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

Hallowell, Edward M. and John J. Ratey. Answers to Distraction. New York: Bantam, 1994.

---. Delivered from Distraction: getting the most out of life with attention deficit disorder. New York: Ballantine, 2005.

Kelly, Kate and Peggy Ramundo. You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy: the classic self-help book for adults with attention deficit disorder. 2d ed. New York: Scribner, 2006.

Kolberg, Judith and Kathleen Nadeau. ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Maté, Gabor. Scattered: how attention deficit disorder originates and what you can do about it. New York: Dutton, 1999.

Solden, Sari. Journeys Through ADDulthood: discover a new sense of identity and meaning while living with attention deficit disorder. New York: Walker & Company, 2002.

Tenny-Brittian, William. Prayer for People who Can’t Sit Still. St. Louis: Chalice, 2005.