Cyberchondriacs: The Internet’s Medicalization of Hypochondriacs

2960 Words6 Pages

With the growing influx of information available on the Internet, more people now decide when they can access different variations of information, and what content they choose to research. One of the critical and often life-saving practices available on the Internet is the extensive reach of medical knowledge. Internet sites such as Web MD offer lists of symptoms and complications leading to an immediate response to check a website the instant one feels under the weather or wishes to know how to treat an ailment. Due to the ambivalent and extensive rhetoric of medical websites, people now have the ability to self diagnose themselves, and most often the diagnose is for an illness they do not have, creating paranoia and a new age of hypochondriacs. In addition, the media may often prime and make aware rare and horrifying illnesses, thus aiding in the paranoia and distrustful nature of hypochondriacs. Therefore, this paper will argue the accessibility and widespread exigence and rhetoric of Internet medical websites and forums creates the medicalization of a new type of hypochondria defined as a cyberchondria, which has further led to a rise in paranoia, anxiety, and trust in inaccurate Internet sources.
To understand the nature of the Internet medical rhetoric that prompts and creates stress on those who misdiagnose themselves, it thus becomes critical to look at the origins of hypochondria. Originally “hypochondrium” can be traced back to Hippocrates, and “had an anatomical emphasis- indicating the area under (hypo) the cartilage of the ribs (chondros) and referred to digestive disorders of the liver, spleen, and gallbladder” (Groopman, 2003, p.2). The actual word “hypochondria” in the seventeenth century described a melancholic d...

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