Dr. Peter Breggin writes:
What is called “spontaneous” behavior, including exploration and novelty-seeking, is at the heart of normal functioning for animals and humans. Any animal, including monkeys, rats, mice, or pigeons, has a natural curiosity or tendency to explore its environment. These animals also have a natural tendency to congregate and to relate to each other. Their investigative or exploratory drives, as well as their social drives, are basic life forces – central features of thriving animals and people.
…It is basic to a child’s survival and growth to want to socialize with other children and with adults, to explore, to pay, and to learn all there is to learn about the surrounding environment. Ritalin and other stimulant drugs suppress this whole range of behavior – the spontaneous exploratory, investigative, playful, and social activities of animals, as well as children.
(Peter R. Breggin, Talking Back to Ritalin, 1998, p. 65)