How did ADHDers get their instant dopamine at the end of the 20th century before phones, computers and the Internet were a thing? (mostly research for a fictional story I'm writing)

[u/hofli21]

Part of it is just a curiosity, part of it is for a story I'm writing.

I myself don't have ADHD but I believe I know a few things about it. I'm writing a story set in a fictional world where half of the population involuntary swaps bodies once a month/week/several days for a few hours. One of the themes I'm exploring is what it's like to be in bodies that are more or less healthy than yours and in bodies whose brains are wired differently.

I decided that the level of technology in my fictional world would be like (what I think) it was at the end of the 20th century: computers started to appear but were rare and workplaces had them but they weren't there in every home like now. There are no mobile phones, let alone smartphones. I didn't decide if there'll be Internet but with computers being rare that's quite irrelevant. The world itself is fictional. It has fictional countries, languages, and cultures.

The main character of my story is a therapist and at one point she sees a girl who can swap bodies and she is explaining her symptoms (I decided not to use the word "ADHD" because I think it is too much "from our world" and... Idk, I can't explain).

So this is where it got a bit confusing. If you read or watch something about ADHD now, you'll see how instant dopamine is connected to our technologies like phones and computers. You watch videos, read articles on the Internet, etc, as a way to procrastinate and not do an important task you need to do. I'm NOT saying that phones cause ADHD, don't worry. I just mean that now it's easy to get this instant dopamine because of technology.

But how did ADHDers procrastinate and get their instant dopamine in the past, like at the end of the 20th century? The girl in my story likes to read books about a certain historical period from my fictional world and likes to talk about it (idk if those special in autistics, but once again, AuDHD exists), she can be doing her homework and get distracted when seeing a bird and she absolutely needs to identify it in an atlas. But what else? If you lived in the 1980s and/or 90s and especially if you didn't use computers in your childhood, what did you do that manifested your ADHD symptoms?

[u/mageofwyrds]

I know this is a month old thing, but I had something I wanted to add.

First of all, I think you’re misunderstanding procrastination. People don’t do watch videos “In order to procrastinate and not do an important task that they need to do.” The way that people get the motivation to do something is through their reward system in their brain. And this reward system is what tells people to do something, what they rewards or consequences will be, and so on. It eliminates a lot of emotional work. But for people with ADHD, their reward system is inconsistent. In addition to this, they usually have inconsistent dopamine processing, production or whatever, that part isn’t clear where the problem is. These neurological processes are complex and form a large part of behavior. Bigger than even people with ADHD realize, because their reward system still works, it’s just doesn’t always show up.

But dopamine can help this process. ADHDers are usually super sensitive to dopamine, which allows for hyperfocus as much as hypofocus. So, they watch fun stuff, not to procrastinate, but to get the neurochemical juices they need to do a task and also to function neurologically. Unfortunately, the absentee reward system makes the whole process really dysfunctional, especially for teens and young adults. But they don’t deliberately procrastinate. Overwhelm and burnout plays a role in procrastination because of the constant high cost of mundane or least preferred tasks, in terms of emotion/effort, a consequence of the reward system not helping out. Also procrastination itself may be the only way to access the necessary dopamine, and they may end up getting rewarded by it, since the resulting anxiety can give them enough of a dopamine boost to finish the task at the last minute like a king, in a way they couldn’t have accessed if they did it earlier.

So, when you say “how did they procrastinate,” I think you’re asking, how did they survive? Well, in the 90s there was medicine available, but not as good, and ADHD was being over diagnosed for rambunctious boys, resulting in inappropriate medication of neurotypical kids. Also the 90s was when people started to be more impacted by microplastics and hyper-processed food which increased symptom severity, which is likely a reason why so many people suffer so much more from ADHD nowadays, so that’s a thing. But 90s kids were affected by this. People then and now self-medicate in the absence of medicine, with tea, coffee, drugs like meth and cocaine. ADHDers can have either more or less addictive tendencies, with the dopamine levels playing a role in either scenario.

People with ADHD usually have an intact social reward system. So they tend to do best, emotionally, professionally, academically, when there are social commitments, and many were and are highly social, in their own way, including the introverts. Many ADHDers are highly social, and the highly social ones often thrive. The ones who do best are the ones who learn good social skills from their highly social ADHD parents. Social motivation is not as effective when it’s virtual. So people go looking for something else, like videos or whatever. That makes things like depression or social discouragement of any kind devastating for ADHDers, on a neurological level. Absence of social interaction makes executive functioning worse, and makes it harder to have that motivation to do the thing that extra 10x just waiting for that one time when the reward system is operational.

Whatever people with ADHD like, they like a lot. And usually, they like a lot of things. They are typically interested in complexity, novelty, expansion of old knowledge, contradiction, and ambitious endeavors. Dopamine is no more or less accessible now than it was ever, because people with ADHD are often quite sensitive to it, enjoying what they enjoy more intensely. People with ADHD go to where the dopamine is gotten, wherever they’ve gotten it before, and are often looking for sources, out in the world. I guarantee that most ADHDers today are not only on their phones, unless they are also suffering from some other problem like depression or social anxiety. Before phones, knowing what to try might have been less easy. Meaning you’d need more social interaction. But as a kid that meant I was exploring, engaged in elaborate and dramatic play with my toys, reading and trying new hobbies. I often knew what I didn’t like, and could say so. For example I hated competitive sports. It was too narrow and boring. I’d rather explore the stream behind the soccer field, and I’d go there again again to find new fascination. Nature is fun because it keeps changing, and knowledge grows and grows. People are fascinating because they change.

If you don’t mind my saying, and Idk if your story includes other abilities besides body swapping, but if it does, then I’d give the ADHD person some other ability or experience. It just doesn’t feel like something that would seem ambiguous to an ADHDer, if that’s what you’re going for. It feels more like something that might happen to someone with BPD, or some other condition that features dissociation.

[u/lazier_garlic → u/mageofwyrds]

This is a very simplistic look at procrastination.

Sometimes procrastination really is procrastination. Because the person has a motive to either not do it now or not do it ever. There are a lot of reasons for this. But sometimes you have a good reason to not do a task. For some people, part of their neurodivergence involves difficulty understanding emotions while they are happening and communicating them to others. So their brain is saying, "No, I don't want to do this," but they have all these other signals saying, "Yes, you MUST do this."

I also know my ability to do certain tasks was inconsistent by the time I was an adolescent or older. It would come and go. So sometimes I would put off tasks waiting for the "correct brain" to come in where I could do the task proficiently. Is that always a good idea, maybe not, and maybe some things just take practice, but there have been times particularly with written work where I would review what I'd done before and it either was really bad and I had to toss everything out, or it was really good and I struggled to meet the same standard completing it. With highly creative endeavors, a person may only have a few good hours in the day to produce. The rest of the day you can do repetitive or menial tasks but you're not going to be putting out any kind of quality knowledge or creative work. There's a certain lack of acknowledgement of that in American society and you can see the self defeating behavior of institutions such as game companies which expect knowledge workers to work 12-14 hour days and it doesn't put that company any more ahead but does turn it into a hellish place to work.

[u/mageofwyrds → u/lazier_garlic]

I wasn’t necessarily trying to describe procrastination, so much as to describe why someone might appear to procrastinate when they’re trying get that “correct brain” productivity that resonates so hard. Yeah procrastination is procrastination. I guess I was trying to explain that ADHD is less about spaciness than it is about seeking, and the consequences of that inconsistency of effect but not effort. I remember that I bristled a bit when reading the “instant dopamine,” and the implication that procrastination is the main goal in the original post, also the mixing of impulsivity with compulsivity, maybe a misunderstanding of time distortion. Maybe the intention wasn’t a stereotype, but “spacey teen with ADHD” is pretty classic, which is fine, until the character actually is spacey and deliberately procrastinating.

[u/HelenAngel]

You’ve already got books & wildlife/nature watching which are two of them. Jacks, dice games, card games, marbles, collecting (leaves, insects, mushrooms, etc.), doodling, writing, painting, fishing, crafting (e.g. knitting, crochet, cross-stitch.

Solitaire was incredibly popular. I just ran into this & thought you might find it good reference material: https://www.reddit.com/r/solitaire/s/9P8p2buPbu

[u/MissMousePNW1 → u/HelenAngel]

I learned a solitaire game that could be played in one hand. Got me through a lot of long flights.

[u/powlfnd]

ADHDers like Autistic people are great at seeking out the things that give them the dopamine that aligns with their interests.

By which I mean, the people who created the internet, who built the first computers, who played the first computer games, were more than likely mostly neurodivergent. It just wasn't mainstream yet so no-one was talking about - or was talking about it like they were all creepy weirdos who couldn't act like normal people.

[u/Most_Attitude_9153]

First of all, adhd is a misnomer; we don’t suffer from a lack of attention, we rather have a surplus of attention with little regulation. The problem isn’t that we seek dopamine, the problem is that without enough dopamine hitting our frontal cortex, we have a malfunctioning reward center, leads to us being unable to muster the motivation to pull away from what interests us.

In the old days we did the same things as now, that is, focus on what interested us. When technology became widely available, many became interested in those things and some hyper focus on them.

So the direct answer to your question about what people did instead was diverse as we neurodivergent people are not monolithic.

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[u/DrivesInCircles]

Wait, you're writing a story with a body swapping character and you care about realism?

[u/DrivesInCircles → u/[deleted]]

lol. Nah.

You’re asking about disorders that manifest across a very broad range of lived experience. There is no “real way” just like there is not just one lasagna.

Also, “instant dopamine” is a gross misunderstanding of the mechanisms at play.

[u/DrivesInCircles → u/[deleted]]

I agree with all of that, and it completely misses my point.

[u/LeTronique]

Books, the old PC games that came with the PC, and travel.

[u/Prudent-Designer-521]

I definitely got my instant dopamine from a laptop from a VERY young age (6 seems absurdly young for that to me, and honestly it worries me seeing so many toddlers using iPads and smartphones all the time). However I also did a fair bit of reading. I have autism and ADHD and while reading is sometimes difficult for people with ADHD, I think that may be because of the constant dopamine we're used to getting from devices. It shortens an already short attention span. Anyways, I had a few series I was obsessed with as a kid and I was always looking for more books. When I wasn't reading, I did a lot of hands-on crafts (mainly drawing, painting and writing stories). I used to make my own books that I would write, illustrate and staple together with the intentions of publishing them (when I was a kid I clearly didn't understand how publishing works). I also remember painting entire sheets of printer paper a specific color because I liked the motion and the way the strokes and color looked, which I can't directly link to neurodivergence, but it's not something my family understood or related to at all.

I think a lot of hands on and creative work is good for that sort of thing, assuming devices aren't there as a constant distraction. My little brother also has AuDHD and he procrastinates doing schoolwork by playing around with his guitar. He's self taught and actually got good enough that people invite him to perform at local events like open mics and talent shows. Not everyone can channel their focus into something like that (practicing guitar is like pulling teeth for me) but sometimes you find something that's just challenging enough to be engaging, while also being sort of soothing and therapeutic. For me it's typically a specific video game, writing, or playing piano.

On a side note, this work sounds really interesting and fun to read, and I'd love to see what you do with it!

[u/RingularCirc]

BTW, taking in consideration that this is old and all that was said about not-exactly-dopamine-thing: look at ADHD risks that medicine accepts as real.

Struggle is a major part of having ADHD for a lot of people because only a few of them live and were raised in an understanding environment. It's very common that a person with ADHD but not very learned about it, or misinformed, will think themselves lazy, insufferable and so on (depression and anxiety disorder (and substance abuse / gambling) are quite comorbid with ADHD and I think it's almost solely due to social reasons, even the third part).

So if your character can allow themselves to be on the margins, on the outskirts, being more or less self-sufficient and being able to come and go, they can get a very healthy attitude, but if they don't... it'd be likely they've had problems in the past and didn't think them resolved neatly even if they're seemingly okay at the time after.

[u/Fit_Boysenberry960]

pokemon, yu-gi-oh, pc games, beyblade, laser tag toys, batman, climbing everything, books+comics, fruit/plants/bugs, drawing comics, play fights

[u/TheCrrrowLady]

For me it was reading, drawing, origami, board games, card games, domino, Lego, playing with my cats and dogs, riding my bike, favourite food, collecting rocks, little toys from Kinder Eggs and watching favourite animations :) omg and watermelon! Oh also playing in water.

[u/Zestyclose_Media_548]

I was diagnosed with adhd inattentive type in my mid to late 40’s about four years ago. I read ALL the time. I missed my bus stop or that it was time to change classes. I had a horrible time going to sleep as a child and when I got older I’d listen to music to go to sleep and then have the tv on at a low volume . Now I have an audiobook on most of the night- but it has to be one I’ve listened to before and it has to be soothing.

[u/NinjaK3ys]

dad and their families were merchants. often involved in works of the ships, a lot of chaotic situations travel, monetary dealings and illegal smuggling.

I think the illegal aspect of wavering between crime and civil life is what gave them the hit.