It's all around us. It is especially omnipresent as impending finals and papers draw closer and stress begins to escalate in the collective conscious of the student body. It is nonchalantly popped into the exhausted student's mouth when their fatigued brain refuses to function anymore. We are aware of its presence and at the same time we choose to remain oblivious to it. College campuses all over the nation have become labs testing both the positive and adverse effects that it has on the human mind.
Adderall and Ritalin are pharmaceutical drugs intended for people with attention deficit problems. When taken by individuals without such medical ailments, they act as an upper similar to speed, making these meds the perfect tool for cramming. They are essentially the muggle equivalent to Hermione Granger's time saving device in "Harry Potter."
There are an abundance of things that contribute to the inevitable distraction of college students preceding finals. Downers such as alcohol, counteracted by drugs like Adderall, offer the promise of literally speeding up in order to get back on track academically before important exams and papers are due.
The classic college mantra that most college students hail is "work hard, play hard," and Adderall essentially assists college students in the working aspect, especially when they've played much too hard.
The question that these academic uppers beg is how ethical their use is. Some people have likened students' use of Adderall in order to better academic performance to athletes' use of steroids in order to better physical performance. However, some would argue that their use is almost necessary in order to survive academically rigorous courses.
"Brain Gain," a recent article in The New Yorker written by Margaret Talbot, unveils the possibility of a rather daunting future of neural enhancers. In it, Talbot recognizes the growing acceptance of neuro-enhancement as reminiscent to the acceptance of plastic surgery when it was first emerging.
Not only do students use Adderall, Ritalin and Provigil to enhance academic performance, but business professionals as well use these drugs to enhance performance at work. She delves deeper into the prospect of how the use of neural enhancers could fundamentally change the way an entire generation of leaders approaches the act of thinking itself.
It seems as though a new tool for productivity is being integrated into the various working facets of society. Will the use of such drugs be as necessary as owning a laptop? We all remember when Starbucks took our Western civilization by force.
Could the widely accepted use of Adderall be next? In terms of drugs and society, it seems as though each generation has a drug that defines it. The '60s and '70s were all about mind-opening drugs.
As Talbot points out, it is no surprise that drugs such as Adderall should become the type of drug to define our own generation, seeing as we are constantly distracted by things such as iPhones, Facebook, Twitter and other technological consumer products. As products of this society, we cannot help but each be a little A.D.D.
