I remember the first time I realized how screwed our generation’s priorities were, in regards to treating our minds as disposable tools to attain a more important academic end, when I entered my undergraduate college bookstore in the fall of my sophomore year to pick up textbooks, and was given free “Study Buddy” pills marketed to enhance my attention and “crack down” on my books. I was disgusted by this capitalistic venture for a plethora of reasons: 1. As an institution of higher education, this college should have known better than attempt to “sell” knowledge or studying enhancement in the form of a pill, which is just degrading to the integrity of our education, as well as our health; 2. The entire idea of chemically ingested knowledge is horrendously unhealthy…Adderall is illegal and chastised on campus, yet they are willingly bequeathing these smiley-faced “Studdy Buddy” pills upon us? Come on…; 3. Even if these pills were to be effective, they would completely negate the integrity of our academic ventures, so why are you gifting them to us, with the idea that we should essentially take the easy way out and swallow a pill to gain attention rather than focus the good old fashioned way?

I clearly possess a lot of biases against chemically enhanced focus and academic performance. While I clearly understand that people need their Ritalin for ADHD, I cannot nor do not understand why somebody should be taking Ritalin under any other circumstance without diagnosis. Self-medication for the purposes of academic achievement or focus is absolutely an epidemic, and one which schools either remain silent about because they can reap the rewards of students’ stellar academic performances (think increased funding), they are misinformed, or they just buy into the capitalist mechanism, like my dear alma mater, and choose to gift us the “dream” because of brand endorsements, while unwittingly infecting us with laziness and altering our minds with God knows what chemicals.
Unfortunately, I do not think I am being hyperbolic in referring to our generation’s aptness to turn toward these attention-enhancing drugs as an “epidemic;” they are being used liberally as study steroids, and as Philip foresees the future unfolding, parents will be feeding them to their adolescents so as to ensure the best academic performances possible. This is terrifying because, again, the interaction between the drug itself and the developing adolescent’s mind will never be certain, especially in the situation of self-medication without diagnosis. These drugs, amphetamines, boost the mind’s energy and productivity, thus prompting people to ingest them for study purposes; on the flip side, this can lead to a “clutter” of the mind, or an anxiety in which people cannot shut their minds off…just think of Johnny Cash and his battle with amphetamines.
Putting anything chemical into your body that shouldn’t be there, especially without proper diagnosis or doctor’s discernment is a horrible idea. Clearly our generation has its priorities out of order; is a grade really worth messing with our neurological state? Is making money really worth promulgating the notion that it is totally alright to essentially cheat (at least by G.W.B.’s standards) and chemically alter our minds in order to get higher grades or achieve? Is our educational system telling us that it’s okay to take the easy way out by not putting a stop to this epidemic?