State of unrest

Abstract

Jarrett discusses if fidgeting can really help concentration and do fidget spinners help ADHD. The author tries to pin down the science of restlessness. Among other things our interest in the subject has a long history. In 1885, the polymath Francis Galton--a cousin of Darwin--found himself in such a tedious meeting that he measured the amount of fidgeting in the audience, publishing his findings in Nature. Freud ascribed deeper meaning to fidgeting, interpreting it as a manifestation of sexual problems. And then in the 1950S, when hyperkinetic disorder--later ADHD--came to prominence, fidgeting began to be seen as a pathological symptom. When I watched children with ADHD working, I could see that they were concentrating, or at least attempting to concentrate, but also that their legs might be moving back and forth, says Julie Schweitzer of the MIND Institute at the University of California, Davis. They might be tapping their fingers, humming to themselves or somehow producing some other movements.