I Feel the Need ... the Need for Adderall

Adderall junkies could be in for trouble scoring their favorite drug on campus: New York Times. It appears that students are increasingly using amphetamine-based drugs to maintain focus during finals or other rigorous parts of their college academic careers. While studies have found that these drugs can help those who have ADD and ADHD, many students without any diagnosis still take the pills to improve academic performance. And campuses are worried that the side effect -- including depression, anxiety and, in some cases, psychosis -- are too dangerous to abide. In fact, recent studies have indicated that as many as 35 percent of college students take this drugs, making their use near-pandemic levels.

That question is whether this is such a bad thing? When I was an undergrad, we simply used huge doses of caffeine and nicotine to stay up for finals week. But what's the difference? Well, maybe the relationship between today's youth and drugs. The contemporary thinking appears to be -- treat the symptoms of anything you feel with some sort of legal or illegal drug. One could argue that we have simply improved our ability to regulate human emotion, but at what short and long term cost? There appears to be many students on college campus today that are barely discernable from the robots that might someday replace them. They are so drugged up, or bored, or waiting for their next fix of media, they appear to be only half alive. 

Is this an auguring of a future not unlike Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, except in reverse. The robots and androids that might someday walk among us might actually seem more human than the humans that surround them. I am, of course, exaggerating to make a point, but it is worth considering what kids feel in a world of affect, dominated by affectation. "When everything feels like a movie, you bleed just to know you're alive," goes a line from an old Goo Goo Dolls ballad. The more recent version appears to be, "When everything feels like a movie, take speed just to know you're awake."