The content of the story is aimed towards young adults and parents as it reveals information about Ritalin specifically and how an unnecessary prescription can impact a person. People that have an overactive mind or are overactive, as well as parents of children that show signs of overactivity should benefit from reading and or just knowing about the story and Ritalin as a whole.
The story that we ended up with was one about a boy who got diagnosed with ADD and is prescribed Ritalin. Before this, he was a regular student but had some focusing issues. He would be bored in class and space out a lot and his grades showed that he must not have put in effort. His teachers and family mistook this as him not trying to learn, and not caring, but one day they take him to see the doctor, as this has gone on for some time, and they worry for him. The doctor diagnoses him with ADD and then prescribes him with Ritalin to help. At first, he is happy that the medication seems to be working, he is more focused, and his behavior has calmed down. Later he notices that he doesn’t really feel like himself. He starts questioning himself and struggles a little with his self-image and feeling of self. Although his self-doubt starts showing, he works well on creative assignments at school, figuring out new solutions that the class and even teacher didn’t think of. After that he starts to recognize that his active and creative brain isn’t a weakness to medicate or fix, but a way to express himself and be who he truly is. And as he grows older, he looks back on his past and can see how he has grown as a person as well as how the diagnosis and prescription didn’t and won’t define him, as long as he stays creative and just stays himself.
The design of Raised on Ritalin is a comic book, with text bubbles, illustrations, and text woven in, as it was a good way to get people interested and engaged with the story by using a more friendly or inviting media form. Although the comic and images were in black and white, it was more enjoyable than if you were to read a plain article or text on a page type of media. The information was given in nice small digestible chunks, so you could really follow along and understand what the author was talking about. He also presented scans of documents that helped show some parts of the story and the finer details written in ink. The redesigned story changed it up, it is meant to be an infomercial-based story, where you get an inside look into the story almost like it was an episode on a TV series. The visuals are in color and can show some emotion or feeling that the character feels as well as help guide the viewer into understanding the content better. These changes were made as a way to reach out to more people and to let a wider audience gain knowledge and awareness about prescriptions and the content of the story.
The main takeaway is that although a prescription and diagnosis may help somebody, maybe listening to them or letting them be free to express themselves how they see fit. We believe that this information will be helpful in assisting doctors and medical staff in general to take more time and consideration into a patient's personality, thought process and habits. This isn’t meant to swing one way or another about prescription; we purely hope that the populace is more knowledgeable and aware after reading the story.