Ritalin Nation: Rapid-Fire Culture and the Transformation of Human Consciousness
by By Degrandpre, Richard J.
Category: Medical , Psychiatry , Child & Adolescent

By the year 2000, the USDA predicts that 15 percent-8 million-of our children will be on their way to using Ritalin. In this illuminating investigation of the epidemic of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) today and its most widely prescribed treatment, the powerful psychostimulant Ritalin, psychologist Richard DeGrandpre sounds a warning: we may well be failing our children by treating symptoms and not causes with a quick-fix and ultimately unsatisfactory solution. Drawing on the latest findings from developmental, psychobiological, and social scientific research, DeGrandpre seeks to solve the problem of ADD by "solving" its history. He attributes the disturbing prevalence of inattention and hyperactivity in children to the larger societal consequences of a speed-up culture that has profoundly altered our perceptual expectations, our very experience of time, and our ability to defer gratification. Our society-wide rush to more, and faster, stimulation leaves children especially vulnerable to "sensory addictions." Ritalin Nation both exposes the shortsightedness of mere biological explanations of ADD and offers some practical guidelines for charting a more hopeful future in environments that deliberately "make time for time," cultivate a less hurried existence, and promote a saner, safer community for our children.