Study drugs make people worse at problem solving, not better

I want to preface this by saying that I am not a supporter of study drugs, except for caffeine.<p>I don&#x27;t find these studies to be convincing. You give people a pill, they don&#x27;t know what it is. These people don&#x27;t know what to expect, they&#x27;ve never taken study drugs before. They&#x27;re solving some random logic puzzle they&#x27;ve never seen before. &quot;Participants had to work out which items to put into a bag.&quot;<p>Compare to how these drugs are used in reality. Someone takes a drug a number of times and performs a mental task that they do frequently. They can get a lot of practice using a drug. Does a new computer make you more productive on day 1, or does it take a while to get used to it, even if you know it&#x27;ll help in the long run?<p>The real problems with these drugs are addiction, side effects, and the phenomenon where you have to take higher doses over time to get the same effect. Telling people &quot;don&#x27;t try study drugs, they don&#x27;t even work!&quot; backed up by questionable studies reminds me of DARE, telling people that marijuana will kill you.<p>Maybe one day we will get a drug that enhances mental function, that works effectively and has no real downsides. I think that could be a great boon to society. I don&#x27;t think it exists yet though, or that we are even really making any progress.

I think this is something well-known among high-achievers at school, but I knew some people at school who would just spend 36 hours straight doing all their assignments and still get bad marks. It was always this way for me: work for a few hours, take a break, (maybe a walk, chat with friends&#x2F;roommates), make some (healthy) food, then get back to it. Staying up never helps, because you have to sleep anyway, and getting poor sleep just makes you work poorly: you can always get something done in the morning. I guess in the end whats most important is time management, making sure you have time to get exercise, socialize, eat right, <i>and</i> get all your assignments in on time and study enough for exams.<p>Having a good cohort, I think, is also important. A lot of friends of mine got Summa Cum Laude, honors etc., ended up doing PhD work at top universities. We all had a very similar work ethic and we were constantly bouncing shit off each other and debating and going out and having fun. The idea that good work requires suffering is nonsense: good work is joyful and passionate. Good work is doing something you care about and find deeply compelling. Good work is always, in the end, something you think is good for yourself. I think as long as you remember that you&#x27;ll be happy and satisfied with whatever you choose to do.

*in drug-naive participants taking high clinical doses.<p>Study participants were high.<p>Slanted reporting by the Economist, not even linking to the paper.

The title should really read: &quot;study drugs make some people worse at problem solving, not better&quot;<p>Or even &quot;prescription medication that effects brain not always helpful for people who don&#x27;t need it&quot;<p>Anecdotal evidence but my problem solving was good before medication and better now that I have the right medication.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;wI6dQ" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;wI6dQ</a>

I mean, this is not a very convincing study.<p>State dependent learning is a legitimate phenomenon.<p>This study didn’t test those who regularly took cognitive enhancers It just looked at people who were not ADHD and then gave them a drug No time to adjust or adapt Would have liked to see four populations tested.<p>1. unmedicated ADHD 2. medicated ADHD 3. Unmedicated non-ADHD 4. Medicated Non-ADHD<p>Then do the tests with placebos and cognitive enhancers<p>If you study for a test on medication you better take the test on medication.<p>And if you study unmedicated, you better take the test unmedicated I think they should find “non-ADHD” populations who happen to routinely take cognitive enhancers and then perform the same test.<p>Would be willing to bet that there is an improvement over placebo group vs medicated group in this population<p>If coffee and nicotine are effective cognitive enhancers for general populations, regardless of ADHD or not, it’s silly to think that stimulants like amphetamines are ineffective<p>So the research conclusions are flimsy and incomplete

I&#x27;d bet a 1000-piece mono-color puzzle that close to 50% of currently written software is done on those drugs.

Discussed a few days ago: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=36335730">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=36335730</a>

&gt; <i>Popping stimulants is commonplace in industries like software and finance. One survey of 6,500 American college students reported that 14% had used the drugs for non-medical reasons.</i><p>I have never met anyone taking such drugs (I&#x27;m French, not American) and would put my kids through hell if I ever found out they took anything. I&#x27;d rather they drop out of school than do any of this.<p>That said... does 14% qualify as &quot;commonplace&quot;?

Is there a link to the study? Seems weird to question the efficacy of drugs for things they&#x27;re not FDA approved for. They&#x27;re not nootropics.

Whenever someone compares dextroamphetamine or methylphenidate to modafinil, I don&#x27;t take them seriously.<p>They don&#x27;t begin to compare in effect.

Post content, this site literally wants me to pay for human written words on the screen in Year of Our Lord 2023

I would assume some of these drugs work best when you already have a few possible approaches in mind, but you need focused brute force to make a dent?

Gingko biloba supplements are great, but you can feel how they activate your psychological weaknesses.

Is the lesson here is that problem solving typically requires more willpower than intellect?

But do they help you learn?