If I love my friends so much why can’t I respond to them?
Smartphones are Designed for Pleasure not Work
The way you use your phone determines your productivity levels and how you manage leisure and work. The problem with smartphone designers is that the consumer is never what their imagined user actually is. Smartphones are designed to balance work, life, and leisure with the tips of your fingers, but in reality majority of brains arent able to switch work and leisure as fast as our phone can.
What this means is if you’re scrolling on TikTok for hours, its going to be difficult to switch into “work mode” when an email from your boss pops up and you’re expected to reply urgently. If we spend most of our phone time looking at memes or watching amusing videos (activities that release dopamine and don’t require much brain power) its going to take effort to pause our pleasurable activity and read a lengthy text and come up with a reply. The more we use our phones for pleasure, the more we associate our phones with pleasure, and more daunting actual work feels when we have to make our brains switch.
How Can I Respond to Messages/Emails Promptly?
In reality, you may have already created a system of dopamine within your cellphone. The differentiation of your “pleasure technology” (one which you browse TikTok, Instagram, or Pinterest and send memes on) and your “work technology” (one you complete your assignments, read emails, apply for jobs/schools/scholarships) should be apparent and you must separate the two.
I’ve noticed that personally I can NEVER get any work done on my phone. Anything associated with work (even instagram messages from my business page) I need to complete on my laptop. My association with my phone is sending funny memes, playing games, and browsing social media while my laptop is solely associated with work.
What Can I Do?
It’s ok to take mental breaks from friends. It is also important to let your loved ones know that you can be overstimulated at times and may not always respond right away yet you have the “time to send memes.” Understand that sending memes and reels are mindless tasks yet reading and responding to a friends message takes mental energy. It may seem to your friend a an inconsiderate action and being a “bad friend.” It’s a common feeling when you have the anxiety to read and respond to a serious text but have the “mental energy” to send a funny dopamine-fueled reel/meme you find and think of a close friend when sending it to them.
Does this mean I should never respond to my friends messages when I don’t feel like it? No. It means you should disclose to your friends and loved ones that you somerimes have difficulty producing a response and may need more time to respond and often feel overstimulated. Do not expect everyone to react in the way you wish they would. Mental and neurological disorders are often looked over and seen as the “invisable disoder.” A task such as simly responding to an email promptly may seem easy to a neurotypical person, but nerve racking to a person with ADHD.
If you feel as you may need immediate assistance, you can benefit from a qualified ADHD coach and schedule a free consulaton here . ADHD coaches are there to listen and provide assitance and check ins to make sure progress is completed.
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