Confessions Of A Cyberchondriac - Internet Making People Think They're Sick
from the people-getting-sick dept
I've heard stories of people in medical school who, as they study each new disease, suddenly notice that they have the symptoms particular to that disease. Now that we have the internet, and anyone can study up on any disease in the comfort of their own home, it seems this phenomenon is no longer limited to medical students. aNonMooseCowherd writes in with a link to a story about the rise of cyberchondriacs - people who are spending all their time researching diseases they believe they have. They go to their doctors armed with information - and are told they're perfectly healthy. Then, they get back online and go doctor shopping for another doctor, since they believe the original one must be wrong. In the end, about the only disease these people tend to have is "health anxiety" (apparently the modern name for hypochondria) with a high tech twist.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
I just went through this
This was certainly an issue where too much information was available, and she kept picking the worse consequences for what was going on.
Fight Club, I believe.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
I thought I had strep throat, so I look up info on the web. By the time I was done I was convinced that I had rheumatic fever. Are those red spots on my chest? My fingers are kind of stiff. Ow, my heart!
It was just a sinus infection.
Then I looked up the side effects of my antibiotics. Whoo boy, that'll keep you up at night.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
Wow,
A WHOLE article on my MOM !
I knew she was eventually gonna get her 15 minutes of fame ...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]