image by: HWN

HWN Suggests

Cyberchondriacs Just Know They Must Be Sick

One day after nursing her six-month-old baby, Colleen Abel developed an itchy red rash on her right breast. The cause was a mystery. Abel speculated that scratches left by her son while he fed might have gotten infected, or that bedbugs might have bitten her. The 36-year-old writer from Illinois opened her laptop and investigated her symptoms on Google. What she found shocked her. The first result blared inflammatory breast cancer, “and that scared me out of my mind,” Abel says. Other diagnoses such as dermatitis were far more likely, but Abel was convinced that a fast-growing malignancy was in her body. Before long, she was spending three to four hours every day reading about breast cancer…

read full article

Featured

 Cyberchondria : Another Anomaly Of Over-Usage Of Modern Technology

Pew Research Centre is of the view that 10% of the people, who search their health maladies on the internet, fall prey to anxiety troubles and even depression. A few years ago, the psychiatric name of diagnosis anxiety was Hypochondria. But the increasing number of people fatiguing over their probable health issue on the internet has given rise to this nomenclature – Cyberchondria.

 Cyberchondria and cyberhoarding: is internet fuelling new conditions?

More research is needed to understand new problems that may arise out of internet use, experts say.

 Cyberchondria in the age of COVID-19

The global epidemic of (mis)information, spreading rapidly via social media platforms and other outlets, can be a risk factor for the development of anxiety disorders among vulnerable individuals. Cyberchondria can be a vulnerability factor for developing anxiety in a pandemic situation, particularly when the Internet is flooded with (mis)information.

 Doctors Really, Really Want You to Stop Googling Your Symptoms

There’s a term for this: cyberchondria, first coined in a 2001 BBC article and later adopted by researchers studying how the internet fuels health anxieties. And there’s plenty of it going around — a 2013 Pew survey found that just over a third of U.S. adults have turned to the internet to help them figure out a health issue, while Google noted in a blog post earlier this summer than around one percent of its searches are on medical topics.

 If Dr Google’s making you sick with worry, there’s help

The term “cyberchondria” describes the anxiety we experience as a result of excessive web searches about symptoms or diseases. It’s not an official diagnosis, but is an obvious play on the word “hypochondria”, now known as health anxiety. It’s obsessional worrying about health, online.

 The Web May Be Hazardous to Your Health

How to figure out what’s ailing you without becoming a cyberchondriac.

Articles of Interest

Cyberchondria: Challenges of Problematic Online Searches for Health-Related Information

For most people, the Internet has become the first stop when they need to find out more about symptoms, health and disease. The consequences of this change are being increasingly appreciated, but they are still poorly understood. While some people feel empowered by an easy access to health information and less anxious after seeking health information on the Internet, others are more anxious or puzzled.

Cyberchondria: It's Not Just in Your Head

Google could be bad for your perception of your health. Is that burning feeling heartburn or a heart attack? Quick, your brain says to the hand not clutching your chest, type "chest pain" into Google and let's get to the bottom of this.

Googling our medical symptoms is making us sicker

Every year, Americans spend at least $20 billion on unnecessary medical visits in the US. This is one of the drivers behind the spiraling cost of health care, which is predicted to soar to $5.5 trillion by 2024. The last thing you’d imagine is that the internet would have anything to do with this. But guess again.

Online Symptom Checkers Are Often Wrong (Phew)

It's probably not cancer: Looking up conditions on sites like WebMD has inconsistent results.

Recent Insights Into Cyberchondria

Research interest in cyberchondria has steadily increased. It is uncertain whether cyberchondria can be considered a distinct entity. Future research should aim to clarify the conceptual status of cyberchondria, quantify its impact and develop evidence-based approaches for a better control of cyberchondria.

The Cure For Cyberchondria

My own story of cyberchondria has a happy ending—I decided to visit my local women’s health clinic, where a kind nurse practitioner smiled through my nervous ramblings, then offered another opinion, which she confirmed via thorough exam, that my breast cancer was actually extra tissue caused by harmless hormones—fluctuating estrogen, nothing more. Years later, I can laugh at that night I spent pacing my apartment, convinced I was desperately ill. Back then, though, I was alone and afraid, certain that any answer, however doom-inducing, was preferable to a nebulous sense of dread. What I discovered online was a good start. But the next phase of digital self-diagnosis can, and will, do better.

The truth about WebMD, a hypochondriac's nightmare and Big Pharma's dream

Some parts of the site seem to be designed to turn users into patients. The site's popular symptom checker, which allows users to insert basic information about their age, sex, and symptoms, is a hypochondriac's worst nightmare.

Too Much Googling Might Be Making You Sick

When we freak out and start WebMD-ing our symptoms, we might actually be pushing ourselves deeper and deeper into believeing that we’re sick when we’re not to begin with.

Web research could give you a bad dose of cyberchondria

The conflicting nature of health information on the web coupled with uncritical reading can lead to fragmented, one-sided or incorrect views of matters of importance, with potentially negative health implications, unnecessary anxiety – or even “cyberchondria”, where people experience undue concern from information they have read online and may ultimately end up making unwise decisions.

Resources

5 Ways to Tell if You Have Cyberchondria

New research shows that we’re all turning to online advice sources, though some more than others. Carrying your anxieties about your health onto your Internet search behavior may be a symptom that you’ve got the increasingly common ailment you won’t find diagnosed there: Cyberchondria.