Distracted, Forgetful and Hooked on Smartphones: Why More Women Are Being Diagnosed With ADHD


许多患有多动症的成年女性都沉迷于电子产品，但她们也确实需要依靠手机来安排生活。这种情况下能怎么办呢？


作为一个成年人，蕾切尔·菲雷尔被诊断为多动症，这并非无稽之谈。

令人惊讶的是，在成年女性这个群体当中，确诊患有注意缺陷多动障碍（ADHD，俗称多动症）的人数正在急剧增加。给她们提供治疗的医生认为，智能手机既是病因又是疗法。 6park.com
Diagnoses of ADHD are surging in a surprising group: adult women. Doctors who treat them are looking at smartphones as both a contributor and a cure. 6park.com
    
成年人的多动症确诊率远低于儿童，而且传统上以男性为主。但是，根据医疗记录软件公司Epic Systems对将近400万份美国患者记录进行的分析，从2020年到2022年，这个数字几乎翻了一倍，原因是女性患者数量激增。这项研究发现，尽管只有不到1%的美国女性确诊为多动症，但男女患者的数量差距已经明显缩小。 6park.com
The attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder diagnosis rate is much smaller for adults than it is for children, and it has traditionally skewed male. But it has nearly doubled from 2020 to 2022, fueled by a surge of women, according to an analysis of nearly four million U.S. patient records by medical-record software company Epic Systems. Although less than 1% of U.S. women have an ADHD diagnosis, the gap with men has narrowed significantly, the research found. 6park.com
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社交媒体和通讯应用会持续分散注意力，从而加剧多动症的症状，让女性在承担工作、照顾子女和管理家庭等通常责任的基础上面临更大压力。她们需要阅读学校的邮件、在Slack上回复同事、给朋友发短信，当然还有Instagram的诱惑。 6park.com
The constant distraction of social-media and communication apps can exacerbate ADHD symptoms, and add stress on top of responsibilities they typically shoulder: working, caring for children and managing a home. There are school emails to read, co-workers to respond to on Slack, text messages from friends—and of course the temptation to scroll Instagram. 6park.com
    
洛杉矶精神病学家维多利亚·邓克利(Victoria Dunckley)表示，限制使用电子产品可以缓解多动症的症状，正因为如此，她要求患者暂停使用电子产品四周时间，以便让自己的大脑平静下来。 6park.com
Victoria Dunckley, a psychiatrist in Los Angeles, says limiting technology can ease ADHD symptoms, which is why she asks patients to take a four-week screen break to help calm their minds. 6park.com
  
她说，20年前，有多动症倾向的人可能表现得很正常，因为那个时候让人分心的事物较少。对许多人来说，由于电子产品吸引了他们的注意力，症状变得更加明显。 6park.com
Twenty years ago, she says, people who had a predisposition for ADHD might have functioned fine because there were fewer distractions. For many of those people, she says, symptoms become more pronounced as tech steals their attention. 6park.com
   
蕾切尔·菲雷尔(Rachel Fuehrer)在年轻的时候总是丢三落四并且健忘。她的学业很糟糕，15岁的时候确诊双相情感障碍。但是，由于不喜欢药物带给她的感觉，她在服药两周之后就停药了。随着时间的推移，她的注意力分散度和冲动性变得越来越严重——也是在这段时间里，智能手机在她生活中扮演了越来越重要的角色。 6park.com
In her youth, Rachel Fuehrer was constantly losing and forgetting things. She struggled in school and was labeled bipolar at 15. But she stopped taking the medication after just two weeks because she didn’t like how it made her feel. Her distractibility and impulsivity worsened over time—coinciding with the increasing role of the smartphone in her life. 6park.com
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将近15年后，一位医生告诉她一件让她恍然大悟的事：她患有多动症。 6park.com
Nearly 15 years later, a doctor told her something that clicked: She had ADHD. 6park.com
   
菲雷尔说：“随着女性不再被动地接受现状，我们会说，‘不，我们不仅仅是健忘，而是我们的大脑出了问题，’我们会寻求诊断。” 6park.com
“With women not accepting the status quo anymore, we’re saying, ‘No, we’re not just forgetful, something is wrong with our brains,’ and we’re reaching out for diagnoses,” Fuehrer says. 6park.com
   
我采访了10位年龄在30多岁到50多岁之间的女性，她们都是成年后被诊断患有多动症。她们都描述了自己与电子产品之间的复杂关系：手机帮助她们井井有条地安排日常事务和限期事项，但也是一种持续的干扰源。 6park.com
I interviewed 10 women in their 30s to 50s who were diagnosed with ADHD as adults. They all described a complicated relationship with technology: Their phones help keep them on top of daily tasks and deadlines, but they’re also a source of constant distractions.

电子产品带来的两难局面

洛丽·埃瑟里奇(Lori Etheredge)是印第安纳波利斯的一名肿瘤护士，也是两个孩子的母亲，一年多前曾三次出现惊恐发作。当时她48岁，医生说这几次发作是多动症的症状，是由更年期荷尔蒙变化引起的。作为治疗方案的一部分，医生建议她限制手机的使用时间。 6park.com
Lori Etheredge, an oncology nurse and mother of two in Indianapolis, had three panic attacks a little over a year ago. She was 48 at the time, and her doctor said the attacks were a symptom of ADHD, brought on by the shifting hormones of menopause. As part of her treatment, her doctor advised her to limit her phone use. 6park.com
   
埃瑟里奇说：“我总是开着Facebook，一边观看‘Housewives’真人秀，一边查看我的日历事项。现在我试着一次只做一件事情。” 6park.com
“I would have Facebook up, be watching my ‘Housewives’ and be looking at my calendar at the same time,” Etheredge says. “I’m trying to only do one thing at a time now.” 6park.com
   
研究表明，这种媒体多任务处理会放慢我们处理和储存信息的能力，降低我们过滤无关信息的能力，并缩短我们的注意力持续时间。 6park.com
Studies have shown that such media multitasking slows our ability to process and retain information, decreases our ability to filter out extraneous information and shortens our attention span.


蕾切尔·菲雷尔工作时会观看流媒体节目，因为她说背景刺激有助于她集中注意力。

医生们表示，越来越多成年女性确诊多动症的原因包括：越来越多的人意识到了这种病症的存在以及诊断标准的变化。 6park.com
The reasons for the rise in adult female ADHD diagnoses include greater awareness of the symptoms and changes in diagnostic criteria, doctors say. 6park.com
    
许多医生表示，多动症在女孩当中经常被忽视，因为她们会收敛自己的症状。对于从小患有多动症的女性来说，成年后的责任以及孕期和更年期荷尔蒙的变化可能会让这种疾病在以后的生活中变得更严重。 6park.com
Many doctors say ADHD often goes overlooked in girls, since they can compensate for their symptoms. For women who have carried ADHD with them since childhood, the responsibilities of adulthood—along with hormonal changes in pregnancy and menopause—can bring the disorder to a head later in life. 6park.com
   
埃米·里弗斯(Amy Rivers)是弗吉尼亚州弗吉尼亚比奇的一名工程师，2020年，48岁的她被诊断出患有多动症。她原先一直从事催命般的销售工作，后来转向了更偏战略性的工作岗位，必须坐在电脑前，连续几个小时集中注意力。 6park.com
Amy Rivers, an engineer in Virginia Beach, Va., was 48 when she was diagnosed with ADHD in 2020. She had been in a go-go-go sales job, but she was shifting to a more strategic role at work where she had to sit at a computer and focus for hours at a time. 6park.com
   
有一次，她丈夫在开车，而她在旁边用Kindle看书，但每看三页书就会去看手机，然后再切换回Kindle。丈夫问她：“你真的不能一次阅读超过三页书吗？”她真的不能。这次经历促使她寻求诊断。 6park.com
What got her to seek a diagnosis was a car ride with her husband. As he drove, she would read three pages of a Kindle book, then switch to her phone, then switch back to the Kindle. He asked, “Can you really not read more than three pages at a time?” She couldn’t. 6park.com
    
去年10月发表在《自然》(Nature)杂志上的一项针对近4,000名青少年的为期五年的研究发现，社交媒体、电视和游戏增加了青少年的多动症症状。频繁使用社交媒体的人会出现多动症症状、冲动行为和认知功能障碍持续增加的情况。 6park.com
A five-year study of nearly 4,000 adolescents, published last October in the journal Nature, found that social media, TV and gaming increased ADHD symptoms in teens. Frequent users of social media showed lasting increases in ADHD symptoms, impulsive behavior and impairment in cognitive functioning. 6park.com
 
医学界对许多多动症诊断的有效性仍抱有怀疑。一些医生认为，电子产品会造成看似多动症的行为，而另一些医生则认为患者可以通过减少使用电子产品来避免被全面确诊为这种心理健康疾病。 6park.com
Skepticism lingers in the medical community about the validity of many ADHD diagnoses. Some doctors believe technology creates behavior that looks like ADHD, while others think patients could avoid a full-blown mental-health diagnosis by dialing back their tech use.

23个闹钟

在29岁怀孕的时候，菲雷尔的健忘和情绪波动变得更严重了。2019年，她在产后不久被诊断出患有多动症。 6park.com
Fuehrer’s forgetfulness and emotional swings grew severe at age 29, when she was expecting a baby. She was diagnosed with ADHD in 2019, shortly after giving birth. 6park.com
  
她现在33岁，是威斯康星州马什菲尔德的一名律师助理。她在服用一种阿得拉(Adderall)仿制药，她说这有助于她平静急躁的大脑。菲雷尔说，没有电子产品她的生活就不能正常运转。 6park.com
Now 33, the paralegal in Marshfield, Wis., takes a generic version of Adderall, which she says has helped quiet her racing mind. Fuehrer says she couldn’t function without technology. 6park.com
   
她在手机上设了23个闹钟。每天中午的铃声提醒她工作日已经过半，该吃午餐了。每周日和周三晚上的闹钟提醒她该给女儿洗澡了。还有一个闹钟提醒她查看日历事项。 6park.com
She has 23 alarms on her phone. One goes off every day at noon to signify that she’s halfway through her workday, and to remind her to eat lunch. Another alarm rings every Sunday and Wednesday night to indicate it’s time to bathe her daughter. Another alarm reminds her to look at her calendar. 6park.com
   
在工作日，她喜欢一边干活一边播放节目，因为她发现在没有背景噪音和视觉刺激的情况下很难集中注意力。她会一边开车一边听有声读物，需要伴随镇静的声音入睡。 6park.com
During the workday she streams shows because she finds it hard to focus without background noise and visual stimulation. She listens to audiobooks while driving and calming sounds to fall asleep. 6park.com
   
菲雷尔说：“如果我的周围一片安静，我脑子里的声音就会震耳欲聋。” 6park.com
“If I’m in silence, it’s really loud in my brain,” Fuehrer says.


菲雷尔在手机上设了闹钟，提醒自己给4岁的女儿玛格(Margo)洗澡。

专门从事多动症治疗的布鲁克林精神病专家贝娅塔·刘易斯(Beata Lewis)指出，对多动症患者进行的研究表明，他们比普通人更渴望进行能够立即带来回报的活动，例如社交媒体或电子游戏。 6park.com
Studies of people with ADHD show they have a greater hunger for activities that provide immediate rewards, such as social media or videogames, says Beata Lewis, a Brooklyn psychiatrist who specializes in ADHD treatment. 6park.com
   
刘易斯说：“对一些多动症患者来说，无聊会带来极其强烈的不适感，他们会不断寻找刺激。” 6park.com
“For someone with ADHD, there’s this incredible discomfort with boredom and a constant searching for stimulation,” says Lewis. 6park.com
   
她建议患者跟踪自己的手机使用情况，删除或限制那些占用自己最多时间的应用程序。但她也建议患者保留手机上的日历。 6park.com
She advises patients to track their phone use and delete or set limits on the apps that suck the most time. But she also recommends that her patients keep a calendar on their phone. 6park.com
   
刘易斯自己也有轻度的多动症。她说：“治疗多动症的诀窍是制定应对策略。电子产品有助于管理事务。” 6park.com
“The trick with ADHD is to develop strategies to cope,” says Lewis, who has mild ADHD herself. “Technology helps manage things.”   6park.com
  
洛杉矶精神病学家邓克利说，无论一个人是否符合多动症的诊断标准，屏幕使用时间过长都会让注意力涣散、难以集中精力和睡眠困难的问题恶化。因此，当人们向她寻求帮助时，她首先会询问他们使用电子产品的习惯。 6park.com
Scattered attention, difficulty focusing and trouble sleeping all worsen with excessive screen time, whether someone qualifies for an ADHD diagnosis or not, says Dunckley, the Los Angeles psychiatrist. So when people come to her seeking help, she first takes an inventory of their tech habits. 6park.com
   
如果他们无法遵循她的意见暂停使用电子产品四周，她会建议他们晚上不要把手机放在卧室里，在他们需要集中注意力的时候关闭通知功能，并且将Instagram等应用程序从手机上删除。她建议，在休息的时候尽量专注于呼吸而不是伸手去拿手机。 6park.com
If they can’t follow her recommended four-week screen break, she recommends they remove their phones from their bedrooms at night, turn off notifications when they need to focus and remove apps like Instagram from their phones. During moments of down time, try to focus on breathing rather than reaching for the phone, she instructs. 6park.com
  
菲雷尔很难做到这一点。她在浏览Facebook的时候设置了30分钟的时限，但通常都是她的丈夫或女儿提醒她该放下手机了。 6park.com
Fuehrer struggles with that. She sets a 30-minute timer when scrolling Facebook, but usually her husband or her daughter tells her it’s time to put down the phone. 6park.com
   
菲雷尔说：“如果没人管我，我会一直刷下去直到手机没电。” 6park.com
“If I was left unattended,” Fuehrer says, “I would scroll until my phone dies.”