Paper Short Abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with ADHD communities and anthropological theories of algorithms as traps this paper will explore the transformative self-making processes which emerge as people come to identify with ADHD through content recommendation algorithms.

Paper Abstract:

TikTok has been identified as playing a significant role in the increased prevalence of ADHD with #ADHD being one of the most popular mental health related hashtags on the platform (Zenone et al. 2021). Public and clinical health literature has considered this growth in self-identification with ADHD through the lens of ‘cyberchondria’ – the development of symptoms or health anxiety through consumption of digital content. In this paper I will make use of anthropological theories of content recommendation algorithms as traps (Seaver 2019), and ethnographies of trapping (Willerslev 2017), in conversation with original ethnographic material to examine self-identification with ADHD as a psychosocial infrastructuring and ethical project which unfolds through entanglement with digital technologies. Content recommendation driven social media here forms a component of a broader environmental or infrastructural trap, creating a particular ecology of attention within which the psychiatric category of ADHD has widespread resonance. Through initial captivation in digital environmental traps, people come to identify with ADHD as a transformative ethical project of self-making which allows them to make sense of and exert agency over their worlds with and through entanglement with content recommendation algorithms. ADHD here takes the position of a transfomative ethical project and technique of self entangled with digital technologies and content recommendation algorithms.