Adult ADHD Cases Jumped 5x in 5 Years—Blame the Environment

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Reader, can you actually make it to the end of this newsletter?

It’s a provocative question, but I’m asking it seriously. According to a 20-year study by UC Irvine professor Gloria Mark, the average time people spend on a single screen dropped from 2 minutes 30 seconds in 2004 to just 47 seconds in 2024. What makes this even more striking is that the median is 40 seconds — meaning in half of all cases, people can’t even hold on for 40 seconds.

But what if this isn’t a matter of willpower — what if it’s the result of something deliberately engineered? In Korea, the number of adults treated for ADHD has surged nearly fivefold in just five years. Has the number of people with genuine brain-based conditions really grown that much, or has the world itself started making everyone look like they have ADHD?Today, I want to trace the answer to this question through data.

What the Numbers Are Really Telling Us

Let’s start with the facts. According to the National Health Insurance Service’s “ADHD Treatment Status Over the Past 5 Years,” the number of adults (age 20+) treated for ADHD in 2024 reached 122,614 — up 4.85 times from 25,297 in 2020. 2024 was the first year the adult figure crossed 100,000. Treatment costs over the same period jumped 5.74 times, from ₩18.8 billion (~$13.5 million) to ₩108 billion (~$78 million).

Women in their 30s stand out in particular. Their numbers rose 8.87 times, from 2,325 in 2020 to 20,624 in 2024, while related treatment costs grew 10.92 times. The U.S. shows a similar pattern. CDC data shows adult ADHD prevalence climbing from 4.4% to 6.0% (about 15.5 million people), and a 2024 meta-analysis estimated global adult ADHD prevalence at 6.76%, or roughly 366.3 million people.

Here’s where anyone reading the data carefully needs to pause. These numbers represent “people who received treatment,” not “prevalence.” Treatment count measures “how many people went to a hospital,” while prevalence measures “what share of the population actually has the condition.” These are entirely different metrics, yet most reporting conflates them into a single claim: “ADHD has exploded.”

There are at least three structural reasons behind the surge in treatment numbers.

First, an expansion of diagnostic criteria. In 2013, the DSM-5¹ relaxed the symptom criteria for adult ADHD, and in 2016 Korea expanded national health insurance coverage from ages 6–18 to ages 6–65. Open the faucet wider, and naturally more water comes out.

Second, a shift in awareness. The top 100 videos under the #ADHD hashtag on TikTok have amassed roughly 500 million combined views. The thought “wait, could this be me?” has been driving people straight into doctors’ offices.

Third, improved accessibility. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the spread of telehealth has physically lowered the barrier to visiting a psychiatrist.

The problem is that none of these three factors actually means “more people genuinely have ADHD.” Rather, the numbers grew because the measuring instrument and the measuring environment changed. It’s structurally similar to recalibrating a bathroom scale and then declaring, “everyone suddenly gained weight.”