ADDoD

Yesterday in the office, we helped to push back the boundaries of human medical knowledge by identifying a new condition that appears to be rife amongst some of our staff - Attention Deficit Disorder on Demand. The symptoms are largely verbal – phrases like “I’m bored with you – you’re out” and “I expect you are still under the misguided belief that I’m still listening to what you are saying”.

You may well be familiar with the concept of a Personal Firewall – this is an area of the human brain that acts very much like a firewall in computing terms – it blocks out content and sensory attacks that are unwanted and may cause harm. Our current theory suggests that ADDoD is a filter plug-in for your Personal Firewall. If a conversation that you are involved in is becoming boring or tedious, then ADDoD kicks in, and you find that your attention is switching to something more interesting- like counting ceiling tiles or speculating as to the meaning of the oscillations in a nearby flagpole.

Our society is increasing becoming an “on-demand” culture. We expect everything to be delivered to us, in the format that we want it, at the time that we want it. It is true of food, movies, software, music – it is symptomatic of the connected society, but also a wider shift in our expectations. It was only a matter of time before ADD became available on demand.

I'm bored with this - goodbye.