Nature magazine polled their readers on their use of "cognition-enhancing drugs," such as Adderall, that great booster of the chattering classes. Oh, let's just call them by their street names: Speed, people. Uppers. Bennies. Blues. Results of the poll? Readers are for them! Twenty percent have taken neuroenhancers like Ritalin, Adderall, or Provogil, seeing them as a perfectly acceptable way to focus and "stimulate concentration or memory." More proof that the modern world has shot our attention spans to hell.

Also, have you heard of "neurogossip"? That's what neuroscientist Anjan Chatterjee (real name!) calls the media's rabid interest in this drug trend.

The most popular reason for taking the drugs was to improve concentration. Improving focus for a specific task (admittedly difficult to distinguish from concentration) ranked a close second and counteracting jet lag ranked fourth, behind 'other' which received a few interesting reasons, such as "party", "house cleaning" and "to actually see if there was any validity to the afore-mentioned article".

Final tally: among the 20% who popped pills for fun and profit, 62% Adderall, 44% took Provogil, and 80 souls said they were taking "other drugs," usually Adderall. Time to make the donuts!


Look Who's Doping Now [Nature]