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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A physician has an unenviable position; he is closest to man approaching a god-like stature. And despite the demise of 'doctor knows best', we still need to trust his diagnosis-something that is increasingly difficult in a world where information is widely available, and Google substitutes for a doctor. In the case of psychiatry the issue of trust is amplified since diagnosis is based on a patient's expressed thoughts and overt behaviours rather than solely on biological phenomena. And these thoughts and behaviours are influenced by the patient's environment-a mix of his social, cultural and technological experiences.
Taylor, S. (2005). Current Directions in the Treatment of Hypochondriasis. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy: An International Quarterly, 19(3), 1-21.
Carr, Nicholas G. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. Print.
People are uncomfortable with internet technology. In his essay, Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted, Malcolm Gladwell states the rise of technology and social media use in our society leads to less effort being expended on important causes. Nicholas Carr continues Gladwell’s opinion of the deterioration that the internet causes. In his essay Is Google Making Us Stupid he quotes Richard Foreman saying “we risk becoming ‘pancake people’ spread wide and thin,” and implies the internet is an unnecessary crutch that weakens us. Though not everyone is under the impression that the internet causes an intellectual deterioration, some are concerned it helps dangerous causes. In the article, “Terror on Twitter,”
When it comes to the topic of technological advances, most of us agree that they are beneficial to humans. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of whether or not Generation Z is at risk. Whereas, some are convinced that we have become cyborgs and are enslaved to devices that lie in our pockets. Others however, maintain that it can be both beneficial and detrimental. In “We Are All Cyborgs Now,” Amber Case argues that, although there are challenges with online socialization, being able to connect online helps to humanize us in new ways. In “Generation Z: online and at risk” Nicholas Kardaras disagrees, asserting that people with addictive personalities, particularly young people, are risking their mental health by favoring their online connections over their ordinary ones.
Caveat lector is a Latin phrase meaning, “let the reader beware.” Health information on the internet is growing at an alarming rate. However, some information on the internet is not accurate or current, and unfortunately, many web sites regarding healthcare offer misleading, incomplete, and incorrect information. Many consumers do not have the knowledge to judge and evaluate the quality of online information. This paper aims to discuss how the website WebMD presents information to readers. It will evaluate WebMD according to its source, where was the source obtained; type of funding, is it commercially funded or private; the validity and quality, how valid is the information and can it be verified; and privacy, is your personal information protected and how?
Moral panics surrounding the health, wellbeing, and behavior of teenagers have flared up consistently over the past decade, from getting drunk off vodka tampons to getting ‘high’ off MP3s downloaded on the Internet, or i-dosing. The popularity of the Internet among youth has inflamed moral panics, in which parents shift the blame onto a media form due to their fears about a new technology or a cultural phenomenon that they cannot control, and which they perceive as negatively impacting society. In his article The Cultural Power of an Anti-Television Metaphor, Jason Mittell discusses how framing a perceived societal ill as similar to a drug makes people believe it is a public health threat. The scientifically baseless moral panic of i-dosing illustrates the fears of parents, community authority figures, and the media that the Internet
Instead, there is a simpler way for patients to become sick without having to wait for excessive amounts of time at the doctor’s office. If you want to become sick, just turn on the television. Drug and treatment ads litter people’s entertainment screen and informs patients about drugs and treatments that remove symptoms for relatively serious conditions. These serious conditions include bipolar disorder, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, and heart disease. The advertisements, though, scare the public by showing a sad woman to represent bipolar disorder, leg pain for multiple sclerosis, stiffness for osteoporosis, and chest pain for heart disease. As a result, a woman who is fatigued from working late for the past week automatically assumes she suffers with bipolar disorder, a man who ran a marathon a few days ago assumes he suffers with multiple sclerosis, an elderly woman with a stiff neck (who’d slept the wrong way last night) believes she has osteoporosis, and a teen with chest pain (aka a heartburn after eating oily foods earlier that day) is afraid he has heart disease simply because that was what the television ad portrayed. As said by Cathy Davidson, contributor to the development of Duke University’s Program in Information Science and Information Studies at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, in her book Now You See It, “The music swells, we’re
Beato stresses out the idea that “American psychiatric Association (APA) should add internet addiction to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)” by bringing up its consequences, he is extremely right. In its first conception, internet addiction disorder may appear as a negligible issue in our society since some of its effects are the promotion of the stupidity and the increase of the unconsciousness. An example of how ignorant and insensate we have become, Greg writes an anecdote about “the 18-year-old who choose homelessness over gamelessness” (para. 7). However, when in paragraph 8 he presents the tragic brief history of the young man who killed his mother and injured his father because they wanted to take his Xbox one, this leads us to question ourselves on how the internet can seriously affect our behavior like drugs. In addition, internet addiction has a negative impact on our mind. In other words, it may conduct to a depression. In his article Beato backs up this evidence with an example of students who qualify themselves “jittery”, “anxious”, “miserable”, and “crazy” (para.3) when they were deprived of their connections to the Internet. Finally, many young people have prefer their virtual life at the expense of their social life. They do not know what it means to communicate with other methods like a letter or a face to face communication. Greg support this idea by using a statistic graph. According to that graph, “more than 1
This is the key issue of social media or any other online sources that any health related information found from internet sites, have lack of quality and this information is not that much reliable. This type of medical information is may be incomplete or informal and sometimes authors of the information are often unknown or they have limited identification. Mostly medical information on networking sites may be depend on single patient stories, and anyone can upload content of information to a site and this user can be unprofessional and due to this unreliable information people may misleads.
Although Carr’s sources may be highly praised in their field or study, they are not experts in the effects the Internet has on our minds. Bloggers are often very opinionated and do not pose as reliable sources for information. The fact tha...
Pornography on the Internet is affordable, available, and abundant. One can easily find websites for viewing this type of material. Although the reports on the actual number of these sites vary, the availability and accessibility of the sites are rarely disputed. Some critics of this form of expression or form of obscenity believe that the pornography itself can cause pornography addictions. Internet pornography does not produce addicts, but rather the propensity to be a pornography addict already exists within individuals by the time they reach adulthood and sustains itself within those individuals.
Technology is known to help mental health because of how it can treat mental health issues. Joanna says “Some people ignore technology’s potential as both a tool for treating mental health issues and for improving the quality of people’s lives and promoting emotional well-being” (Rodriguez). There are now programmes to help with phobias and depression that help people cope with their difficulties. Although there are programs to help with mental illnesses, there are even more ways technology is causing these mental issues in people’s lives. Technology can be beneficial in acting like a “doctor”. People will use their phones to help with a personal problem. It is stated that “More than half of young people have used the Internet to find help for a personal problem. The vast majority - a whopping 94% - felt satisfied with the information they found online” (Hazel). Technology has such a large variety of things to help someone with personal problems. Technology is making it very convenient to deal with mental health, it is very beneficial in acting like a “doctor”. Even though technology can be like a “doctor” to someone helping with their problems, the internet is not always trustworthy and can cause someone to come across the wrong page creating even more problems. Going to seek help with
Johnson, William D. "Internet and Modern Society." Dept. of Medicine. 24 Jan. 2006. University of Wyoming. 2 June 2008 .
We invest more in talking online than talking face to face. Overuse of machines has numerous negative impacts, for example, creating physical/behavioral sicknesses, harming family connections and diminishing scholarly study. Above all else, when a computer turns into the essential issue of an individual's life, they experience a conversion in behavior; they feel that they cannot live without a computer. The normal thing to see with youngsters who have been permitted to invest an excess of time on the computer, optically watching TV, or playing video games and when it is to stop, they have temper tantrums. But it is not only a matter of behavioral progressions when individuals can’t tear themselves away from the screen long enough to join in with whatever possible action, it can take a toll on their comfort and health.