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Permalink Reply by Lynne Favreau on June 26, 2012 at 8:45pm

I'm not a fan of facebook and can understand the dissonance you feel but, speaking of honesty and respect for people—your comment "digital television screens created an epidemic of autistic and ADHD children who have abnormally short attention spans" I'm afraid I have to chastise you for making such sweeping erroneous assumptions of conditions that require professional diagnosis. While I'll concede to the correlation of short attentions and advent of television and computerized everything, the off-hand connections you're trying to force between social media and two devastating medical diagnosis is disrespectful and ill-conceived.

Permalink Reply by Sarah Paul on June 27, 2012 at 12:00pm

thank you for your commnent. It is not an offhand observation, but something I have observed closehand and been concerned about for years. Certainly I am not a doctor and bow to medical research, but where is the medical research that explains this recent, alarming trend? The medical community is coming up with a big fat zero as to causes and they are treating these conditions with drugs that are alarming and experimental, and are basically narcotics. I have seen lots of ADHD children and seen their parents. You don't have to Einstein to see that the kids have lived in an emotionally hectic environment that was never quiet and where they were simply raised by the television. Perhaps I should have said that the obvious parallel  rise in both factors--inattention span and digital TV--indicates a definite link. And autisim has been around a long time, before digital TV, but there are new forms of autisim now that seem very linked to ADHD.  I am convinced of the relationship between little children who are set in front of TV for excessive periods of time--and there are many-- I accept your criticism and knew I was many a generalization when I said it that may not apply to all cases. But as a mom, I am sure many other moms will relate when I say that when I see children in therapy and on narcotic medications, with learning disorders, whose parents are obviously not uneducated, insensitive, incompetent, and probably abusive, I feel disgust at my society that treats the situation by diagnosing the children with an illness and giving them drugs. I could say a lot on this subject but I bow to your criticism that I have made a generalization that probably does not always apply add my own admission that I am not a doctor. If  I have offended anyone to whom my comments do not apply, I certainly apologize. Still our society ignores so many obvious things. We are slow to hold people parents accountable. We are slow to slow to see the obvious. We are very slow to embrace responsibility. How do we end suffering? Not by ignoring it,and not by co-signing the bringing of souls into the world by incompetent people with the mentality of a 5 year old. Is it an accident that the huge percentage of ADHD chidren belong to the poor class? Responsibility goes deep and basic into the way a society manages reproduction. And reproduction in a civilized and caring society must be managed so that people do not suffer. I am about suffering. When the suffering of children stops, when every soul born becomes worthy of being protected even from its own parents, we will be a human race worthy of respect. I venture to make the generalized prediction that behavior illnesses like ADHD and autism will then disappear. Illnesses are absolutely culturally oriented.