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Allison Burk’s teenage daughter struggled with uncontrolled emotions, a shrinking attention span and a growing tendency to procrastinate. A family doctor suggested ADHD testing, which led to an unexpected discovery: The teen had ADHDand Burk did too. During her daughter’s evaluation, Burk thought, “Wait a minute. This sounds familiar,” she recalled. I was able to piece together that this might be something I was experiencing, said Burk, of Columbus, Ohio. She subsequently underwent her own testing and was diagnosed with ADHD at age 42. More adults are being diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Diagnoses have been rising for decades but seem to have accelerated in the past few years. A recent study suggested that more than 15 million U.S. adults roughly 1 in 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD. The condition always starts in childhood, but about half of adults with it are diagnosed when they are 18 or older. Some doctors say the number of people coming in for evaluation is skyrocketing. Just in our clinic, requests for assessments have doubled in the last two years, said Justin Barterian, a psychologist based at Ohio State University. Here’s a look at the phenomenon, and how to know if you might have the condition. ADHD symptoms in adults ADHD makes it hard for people to pay attention and control impulsive behaviors. It can be inherited, and is often treated with drugs, behavioral therapy, or both. It’s like there’s an engine in you and you feel like it’s always running, and you can’t turn it off except with medication, said Judy Sandler, a 62-year-old Maine woman who was diagnosed in her 50s. ADHD has been called the most commonly diagnosed mental health disorder in U.S. children, with more than 7 million kids diagnosed. Historically, it was thought to mainly affect boys (perhaps because boys with ADHD were seen as more disruptive in school) and to be something that kids grew out of. But experts believe many people aren’t diagnosed as kids and live with symptoms into adulthood. Adults with the condition talk about having trouble focusing on tasks, juggling responsibilities, and planning and managing their time. Some talk about not putting things away, and straining personal relationships with their restlessness, mood swings and impulsiveness. Burk said she was grouped with talented and gifted students in grade school but didn’t complete college until her 30s because, when I was 19, I hitchhiked across the country on a whim and ended up a single mother in her early 20s. She now works in marketing and media relations for Ohio State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Diagnoses have been rising Diagnoses have been climbing in both kids and adults, and the recent government report found adult ADHD was more common than earlier estimates. We havent had (federal) adult ADHD data in a long time, said one of the studys authors, Angelika Claussen of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were indicators of the rise, she added. Increasing demand for ADHD medication led to widespread shortages after the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020. A 2023 study showed the rise in prescriptions was particularly notable in adults especially women. ADHD diagnoses and prescriptions were increasing before the pandemic, due partly to a change in general diagnostic criteria in 2013 that broadened the definition of ADHD and reduced the number of symptoms a patient needed to have. But case counts really seemed to jump in 2020, when schools were closed and many adults were forced to work from home. Its very difficult to focus when you are home and you have kids, Claussen said. That may have exacerbated the symptoms for people whod had mild ADHD but were able to cope before the pandemic. How ADHD is diagnosed in adults The last few years have seen growing cultural acceptance and curiosity about the condition, fueled by a proliferation of I have ADHD social media videos and online medical start-up companies offering 5-minute diagnostic quizzes. Indeed, the long-held belief that ADHD was underdiagnosed in adults has given way to recent debates about whether it’s become overdiagnosed. Theres no blood test or brain scan for ADHD. Experts say it is diagnosed when symptoms are severe enough to cause ongoing problems in more than one area of life, and when those symptoms can be traced to pre-adolescent childhood. Ideally, a psychologist or psychiatrist diagnoses it by taking careful histories from patients and from people who know them, experts say. They also might ask patients to take tests designed to check their memory and ability to concentrate. Doctors also must rule out anxiety, depression and other conditions that can have similar symptoms. But getting an appointment with a mental health professional can take months, and intensive ADHD evaluations can cost thousands of dollars. Many patients turn to family doctors or even online diagnostic quizzes, some of them connected to telehealth companies that prescribe medications. There is wide variability in this country in how people diagnose, how strict they are, and who they diagnose, said Margaret Sibley, a University of Washington psychologist. The American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders is drafting a first national set of diagnosis and treatment guidelines for health professionals who treat adults, and expects to release them later this year. The goal is “to improve the accuracy of diagnoses in this country,” said Sibley, who is leading the work on the guidelines. Mike Stobbe, Associated Press The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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Those searching for “cute winter boots” on TikTok at the moment might be a little confused. A recent movement of the same name has nothing to do with footwear. Its a code phrase being used to discuss resistance to President Trump and his immigration policies while skirting censorship or bans on the platform. Many users have posted videos talking about their “cute winter boots” but showing warnings or slides of information to their viewers at the same time. Some posts see users discuss details about protests or recent developments, using a notebook or pieces of paper. Meanwhile, the sound over the video is unrelated or uses trending audio in order to avoid videos being flagged. When TikTok users mention cute winter boots protecting people from “ice,” theyre referencing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Nearly 1,000 immigration arrests were carried out on Sunday as Trump’s promise of mass deportations began. ICE officials have since been directed by Trump officials to up the number of people they arrest, from a few hundred per day to at least 1,200 to 1,500. Coded language is commonplace on social media Cute winter boots is one example of algospeak, a system of coded language designed to bypass algorithmic filters and spread warnings and information about such deportations. Another example is the phrase “Senator, I’m Singaporean,” a quote from TikTok CEO Shou Chews response to Senator Tom Cotton during a congressional hearing, where Cottons question implied that Chew was a Chinese government agent. Now, TikTok users frequently leave this phrase in comment sections to subtly warn others about potentially sensitive or flagged content in the videos. The “cute winter boots” trend also exploits the platforms algorithm, which favors product-focused content, to maximize visibility. Creators often pair their videos with unrelated but highly searchable pop-culture keywords, such as “Taylor Swift” and Sabrina Carpenter, to further boost their reach. Some of these videos also link to TikTok Shop, but instead of boots, they offer educational items like Night by Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust memoir, or gear useful for protests, such as protective equipment. For those actually on the hunt for cute winter boots, youre better off searching elsewhere at the moment.
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Tech stocks have erased virtually all their 2025 gains after Chinese startup DeepSeek raised concerns about the competitiveness of the artificial intelligence field with its release of a free, open-source AI tool that founders claim was created for just $6 million. The reaction from all corners has been extreme. Hackers, seemingly, have launched large-scale malicious attacks on the companys service, causing it to temporarily limit user registrations. Nvidia investors are dumping that companys stock, with shares falling more than 16% and the price hitting a point it hasnt seen since last September. Analysts, though, are a bit more sanguine about the news for the most part. Wedbushs Dan Ives acknowledged that DeepSeeks lower startup costs and reported use of reduced capacity chips from Nvidia was a shot across the bow at the U.S. tech world, but said the sell-off was a golden buying opportunity for investorsand the threat to other AI companies was overstated. DeepSeek impressed the tech community with this LLM [large language model] . . . but this is not launching 100x the capacity/algorithms that is needed to even consider this a competitive threat [to other AI companies] in our view, Ives wrote. Ives wasnt alone calling this a good chance for investors to jump into the AI space. This could be the entry point in AI stocks, Nvidia in particular, many have been waiting for, TD Cowen analyst Joshua Buchalter wrote in a note. JPMorgan, meanwhile, reminded investors that it was inevitable the heavy spending on AI would eventually be reined in, pointing to the investment cycle in Cloud technology in years past as an historical example. JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee wrote that he saw the DeepSeek news “largely [as] a reminder to investors of the likelihood of an optimization phase for investments . . . to reach the best trade-off between efficiency and performance. Bring out the bears There were, of course, analysts who used the DeepSeek news to ding both Nvidia and AI firms. Another JPMorgan analyst Sandeep Deshpande issued a separate note, writing that Deepseeks highly efficient and lower resource-intensive AI model has shown such significant innovation and success is posing thoughts to investors that the AI investment cycle may be overhyped, and a more efficient future is possible. (Analysts from the same firm sometimes contradict each other, as they hold different opinions.) Jefferies Group analyst Edison Lee, meanwhile, wrote reevaluating computing power needs could cause 2026 AI [capital expenditures] to fall (or not grow). Long-term bullishness Some analysts noted that while DeepSeek might have launched an LLM for less and using technology thats not as advanced as what U.S.-based AI companies are using, it still faces one insurmountable problem: Its a Chinese companyand that could limit its widespread adoption. In an inevitably more restrictive environment, U.S. access to more advanced chips is an advantage. Thus, we dont expect leading AI companies would move away from more advanced GPUs, wrote Citi analyst Atif Malik. Ives may have summed it up best, saying that while creating a chatbot is one thing, its not the same as creating a robust AI system. No U.S. [major corporation] is going to use Chinese startup DeepSeek to launch their AI infrastructure and use cases, he wrote. At the end of the day there is only one chip company in the world launching autonomous, robotics, and broader AI use cases and that is Nvidia. Launching a competitive LLM model for consumer use cases is one thinglaunching broader AI infrastructure is a whole other ball game and nothing with DeepSeek makes us believe anything different.
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