ADHD and AUTISM AREN'T a TREND
We’re Just Finally Noticing.
This piece explores psychiatry, public health, and lived experience. It is not medical advice. It is an invitation to think more carefully.
Before we blame the algorithm, the culture, or “kids these days,” pause. Visibility is not contagion. Recognition is not imitation. Somewhere, someone is finally finding language for a lifetime of friction, and somewhere else, someone is dismissing it as trendy because that feels safer than being curious. Certainty is comfortable. Nuance requires work. Stay with this.
Recognition Is Not Contagion
It is midnight. A teenager is lying on her bed with her phone six inches from her face. The room is dark except for algorithmic light. She pauses on a TikTok about ADHD. The creator talks about time blindness. About starting projects at 1 a.m. About teachers saying, “You’re smart, if only you applied yourself.”
She watches it again.
Something in her chest loosens.
Across the country, a 35-year-old watches something similar and feels a quieter, more destabilizing recognition. Report cards that said “does not work to potential.” Missed deadlines. A lifetime of believing this was laziness, immaturity, or a moral defect.
And almost immediately, someone else says the word.
Fad.
It is a convenient word. It implies imitation. Suggestibility. Cultural costume. It protects us from having to ask harder questions.
But the numbers have been there longer than TikTok.
• Estimated lifetime ADHD prevalence in U.S. children: ~11%¹
• Estimated adult ADHD prevalence: ~4–5%²
• ADHD hashtag views on TikTok: billions³
One of those is epidemiology. One is lifespan data. One is an algorithm.
They are not the same thing.
As Stephen Wright (comedian who makes existential dread sound polite) once said, “You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?”⁴ We are saturated with explanation. Saturation is not fabrication. Sometimes it is vocabulary finally catching up to experience.
The uncomfortable possibility is not that teenagers are copying each other.
The uncomfortable possibility is that they are recognizing themselves.
The Ruler Disappears
Picture a classroom in 1910. A boy reaches for a pencil with his left hand. Crack. “Use the right one.”
• Early 1900s reported left-handedness: ~2–3%⁵
• Mid-century, after punishment decreased: ~10–12%⁵
The human genome did not mutate in forty years. The ruler disappeared.
We look back and feel embarrassed for them. How certain they were. How confident. How wrong.
The boy was never defective.
He was inconvenient.
When identification rises, we instinctively assume cause. But sometimes the only thing that changed was permission.
The Autism Question
Autism identification among 8-year-olds shifted from about 1 in 150 in 2000 to roughly 1 in 31 in 2022⁶.
• 2000 prevalence: ~1 in 150⁶
• 2022 prevalence: ~1 in 31⁶
• DSM-5 broadened criteria: 2013⁷
• Global pooled prevalence: ~0.6–1%⁸
Nearly fivefold. Screening improved. Criteria broadened. Girls and historically overlooked racial groups are recognized more often⁶⁷.
If autism were a fad, it would spike and collapse like pet rocks and Beanie Babies. Autism was described in medical literature in 1943⁹. ADHD-like symptoms were described in 1902¹⁰.
These nervous systems are not new.
What’s new is visibility.
As David Byrne (musician and observer of human strangeness) once said, “We’re all just trying to make sense of the world.”¹¹ When explanation spreads faster than nuance, it can look like contagion.
Sometimes it is recognition.
Architecture, Not Trend
Walk into a job interview. Eye contact. Small talk. Unwritten rules.
Now imagine your strengths are deep focus, pattern recognition, precision, honesty.
• Employment rate for U.S. adults with disabilities: ~22%
• Employment rate for adults without disabilities: ~65%¹²
• Disability employment gaps across OECD countries: persistent double digits¹³
That 43-point gap is not a TikTok dance.
It is architecture.
As Larry David (comedian and reluctant participant in social choreography) once said, “I don’t like to be forced into anything.”¹⁴ Many neurodivergent people are not resisting responsibility. They are resisting performance.
When environments reward rapid eye contact over sustained precision, we call the latter deficit.
Public Health and Empathy
Public health is plumbing. Clean water. Seat belts. Vaccinations. When systems are designed well, life becomes less exhausting.
Empathy functions the same way.
• Public health spending in the U.S.: ~2–3% of total healthcare expenditures
• Disability inclusion gaps remain across developed nations¹³
Empathy is not softness. It is infrastructure.
As Michio Kaku (theoretical physicist who enjoys reminding us how small we are) says, “The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.”¹⁵ Neither is human variation.
But we are under some obligation to treat each other decently anyway.
The Medication Question
There is a question that lingers after clinic ends.
Am I helping someone with medication function more smoothly in a world that does not accept them?
Medication can reduce suffering. It can quiet chaos. It can improve focus. But it cannot redesign the classroom.
If the classroom punishes the left hand, do we medicate the child — or remove the ruler?
That tension is real.
The Closing Question
Pet rocks were a fad. Low-rise jeans were a fad. A nervous system is not.
One day, we may look back at parts of this moment the way we look back at that 1910 classroom. We may shake our heads at how certain we were. How quickly we blamed. How easily we dismissed.
The ruler is rarely obvious while we are still holding it.
The harder question is not whether neurodivergence is trending.
The harder question is whether empathy is.
If explanation spreads and we respond with suspicion, we shrink. If explanation spreads and we respond with curiosity, we grow.
Blame seeks certainty.
Fad seeks dismissal.
Sensitivity seeks safety.
Fire made us gather.
Grain made us wait.
Algorithms made us react.
The question is whether we can slow down long enough to notice the ruler before we swing it.
Please smash the like button, leave a comment.
If you are in Boulder, stop by. I do not have a trend forecast. But I have cookies.
If we cannot sit across from one another long enough to eat one in peace, we were never as evolved as we thought.
NOTES AND SOURCES
CDC (2022). ADHD Data and Statistics.
Faraone, S. et al. (2021). ADHD prevalence in adults. World Psychiatry.
Public TikTok analytics estimates, ADHD hashtag views (2024).
Stephen Wright stand-up performance.
McManus, I.C. (2009). History of human handedness.
CDC Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network (2023). MMWR Surveillance Summary.
American Psychiatric Association (2013). DSM-5.
Zeidan, J. et al. (2022). Global prevalence of autism spectrum disorder. Molecular Psychiatry.
Kanner, L. (1943). Autistic disturbances of affective contact.
Still, G.F. (1902). Some abnormal psychical conditions in children.
David Byrne interview commentary.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2024). Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics.
OECD (2022). Disability, Work and Inclusion.
Larry David interview quotation.
Michio Kaku public lectures.
Thank you!