Adult ADHD Diagnoses Rose 4.85x—What the Number Means

Reading the Statistic on Rising Adult ADHD Treatment Numbers

In 2024, 122,614 adults aged 20 and over in Korea received treatment for ADHD. That’s roughly 4.85 times the 25,297 people treated in 2020. The figures come from data submitted by the National Health Insurance Service to the office of lawmaker Nam In-sun, released in 2025. Lawmaker’s office press release

When I saw this number, the first thing I did was check what exactly was being counted. The fact that far more people are being treated is not the same claim as saying the share of people with ADHD in society as a whole has risen by the same amount.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is a neurodevelopmental disorder that typically begins in childhood and can persist into adulthood. In some cases, people are diagnosed for the first time only after becoming adults. To make sense of the rise in treatment statistics, we need to look together at people diagnosed late, at conditions that have made treatment more accessible, and at actual changes in symptoms.

Patient counts and prevalence rates measure different things

In the same data, the number of women in their 30s treated rose from 2,325 in 2020 to 20,624 in 2024. Total treatment costs for adults also increased from roughly ₩18.8 billion (~$13.5 million) to ₩108.1 billion (~$77.9 million). This shows that demand for treatment has grown substantially. Data submitted by the National Health Insurance Service

People who never sought treatment don’t show up in the patient count. Conversely, someone who’s struggled for years but only recently got help can suddenly appear in the data as “new.” An increase in patient counts alone can’t tell us when symptoms began, or how much of the increase is explained by any particular cause.

The figure from the CDC’s 2023 survey in the U.S.—6.0% of adults, about 15.5 million people—also needs its measurement method checked. That number is an estimate based on people who reported currently having an ADHD diagnosis. You can’t simply splice it together with figures from surveys conducted at different times, on different age groups, using different methods, and calculate a growth rate from that. CDC, 2024 report

The conditions for seeking treatment have also changed

How a diagnosis is perceived and what treatment costs can both shape whether people seek medical care. In Korea, coverage for some ADHD medications was expanded to adults in 2016. For instance, the criteria for extended-release methylphenidate came to include confirmed cases aged 6 to 65. This doesn’t mean every ADHD treatment and every medication’s criteria changed the same way. Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service, 2017 Drug Coverage Standards, p.96

This change is an important part of the backdrop for adults gaining access to treatment. But this dataset alone can’t tell us how much of the 2020–2024 increase the 2016 policy shift actually explains. Rising awareness through social media and improved access to care are also plausible explanations, but the size of their effect needs to be verified separately.

The (US) National Institute of Mental Health describes cases where people around a child failed to notice their symptoms, or where a supportive environment let them get by, only for difficulties to surface under the demands of adult work life. It notes that symptoms in women, in particular, sometimes go unnoticed in childhood. This is exactly why adult diagnoses shouldn’t simply be dismissed as a trend-driven wave of self-diagnosis. NIMH’s guide to adult ADHD

The ‘47 seconds’ was how long it took before switching screens

We also need to look at the digital environment that scatters our attention. Gloria Mark of UC Irvine studied how long it takes people to move from one screen to another while working on a computer.

In an interview with the American Psychological Association, Mark explained that her 2004 study found an average of about 2 minutes 30 seconds, while later studies observed around 47 seconds. This is a measure of how long people stayed on the same screen. It doesn’t mean no one can focus beyond 47 seconds, and it certainly doesn’t mean that failing to hit that mark is a sign of ADHD.

Switching screens can include transitions genuinely required by the task at hand. Still, frequently jumping between different tasks creates the extra burden of having to re-figure out what you were doing before. Mark’s research also addresses the relationship between frequent switching and stress. Gloria Mark’s APA interview

I don’t think it’s enough to treat this environment as purely a matter of individual willpower. When notifications keep arriving, videos auto-play into the next one, and more content is endlessly served up, the opportunities to stop what you’re doing and look at something else multiply. This is tied to the business model of services that benefit the longer users stay engaged.

That said, we can’t conclude that every feature works on the brain by the same mechanism, or that digital services directly cause ADHD. Everyday distraction and clinical diagnosis need to be kept separate.

A Diagnosis Isn’t Just “I Feel Like I Can’t Focus”

ADHD evaluation doesn’t end with checking off items on a symptom list. Even for adults, clinicians look at whether symptoms started before age 12, whether the difficulties have persisted for at least 6 months, and whether functioning is impaired across multiple settings. They also rule out whether other mental health conditions or physical conditions better explain what’s happening. NIMH’s explanation of diagnosis

Seeing relatable stories on social media can be a starting point for seeking help. But a short video or a checklist can’t substitute for a professional evaluation. At the same time, heavy smartphone use alone shouldn’t be used to rule out the possibility of ADHD either.

The misuse of prescription stimulants as a study or work performance enhancer is a separate issue worth examining. A 2023 study in JAMA Network Open analyzed non-medical stimulant use among students across 3,284 schools in the US. At some schools, more than 25% of students reported having used stimulants non-medically in the past year — but that figure doesn’t represent US students as a whole. NIH’s explanation of the study

The FDA has warned about the risks of addiction and overdose tied to misuse and sharing of prescription stimulants. There’s a real distinction between a patient who needs the medication receiving treatment under a doctor’s supervision, and someone taking a pill that was prescribed to another person. And a rise in prescription rates alone doesn’t mean the treatment was unnecessary. FDA’s 2023 safety communication

Oswarld’s Lens

I think we need to look at both the statistics and the environment together on this issue. Reading the rise in treatment numbers as “people’s brains suddenly got worse” goes beyond what the data shows—but so does reading it as “this is all overdiagnosis.”

My interest lies particularly with the environment. I want to ask whether it’s really right to tell individuals to just “focus harder” while leaving services and work practices that constantly demand our attention exactly as they are. When explaining the everyday problem of disrupted concentration, I think these conditions deserve more weight than they’re getting.

At the same time, this data alone can’t support the conclusion that environment is the bigger driver behind the rise in ADHD diagnoses. Improving the environment and getting the diagnosis and treatment you need aren’t mutually exclusive—you can do both. If difficulties at work or in relationships persist, getting a professional evaluation is necessary.

When I look at numbers, I try to check three things: what was actually measured, whether the conditions for measuring it have changed, and what the number alone can’t tell us. I think reading the rise in adult ADHD treatment numbers this way lets us see both the struggles of people who sought help later than they should have, and the environment we need to change.

In the next piece, I’ll look at how services are designed to hold users’ attention for as long as possible, and how companies and governments are responding.

The author is Oswarld (Kwangseob Ahn). Current roles: Adjunct Professor at Sejong University, Strategy Consultant at INLEVEL9. Career, research, books, and recent work are kept current on the About page. Latest · July 2026: HEMA-2: A Consolidation-Aware Tri-Memory Architecture with Multi-Channel Scheduling for Lifelong Conversational AI.