One of the first reasons that sticks out to me is that it motivates you to get things done, especially things that would otherwise be boring and repetitive. For example, something like fixing formatting errors in 100,000 lines code.
As for why you never felt the need to use it, my guess is that maybe you're more secure with yourself than some other people.
There's an incredible push to become "successful" these days (partly due to social media I guess), so I can see why some people resort to Adderall to give themselves a leg up.
Of course, I’m talking about people who don’t have ADHD and are taking it simply to augment their performance.
Apart from psychosis or heart issues, why should anyone settle for being less powerful?
The earlier in a career, the worse of a problem this is. Which is why I think doing this as a student to enhance academic performance is a particularly bad idea. You're in school to prove to yourself and others what you're capable of. Doing so with drugs that you're not willing to take for the rest of your life is only lying to yourself.
I can't cope with boredom. It feels like a prolonged low intensity panic attack to me. I will do almost anything to avoid it. In a work environment that includes making bad choices merely to avoid putting myself in situations where I might have to do boring things. I think ADHD is actually under diagnosed and a lot of people would be happier if they were taking medication for it. That's probably the reason the people this article cites are trying to self medicate for it. If it wasn't a problem they wouldn't be looking for a solution.
Contrary to the sentiment that these medications are just some kind of super energy drink, I find regular therapeutic use actually leads to less work hours and reduced stress for me.
Everyone here is a misunderstood genius with ADHD.
I went to a pretty rough college where I had standard 24 hour straight homework sessions once or twice a week. And I used caffeine maybe once a week at most. I work at a startup where the work culture isn't as competitive as what I feel is the norm, but even listening to friends at there does not seem to be such a ridiculous need for overclocking yourself.
I just seem to have never done work that was hard enough to push me to require drugs, and it's not because I haven't done hard work. Most work seems to be either you just put in the 40 hours it takes to solve it or it hasn't been solved.