We’re sure you’ve done just that: researched your symptoms on the internet, found out they were associated with a dangerous or even life-threatening illness, got yourself a terrible diagnosis, panicked. You are not alone, many do it, but is it harmless?
Medicine is one of the most popular topics on the internet. Yandex experts have calculated that every minute people send at least 5,000 inquiries on various medical topics. Yours may be one of them.
It’s definitely cancer!
The idea of asking what these or other symptoms might be associated with might not seem like such a bad idea, especially since the internet makes it so easy to do so. But the question is what do you do with the results. In some cases, they cause panic and any symptom – headache, stomachache, extreme fatigue or even a harmless cough (hello, coronavirus) – you associate with a dangerous, rare or even fatal disease.
The specificity of Internet research also contributes to this. In 2009, scientists set out to find out what exactly users get when they google harmless symptoms. It turned out that in the first ten shows there are sites with information about the most serious and frightening diseases. So, in one in three cases, the user received a detailed description of brain tumors on request “headache”. This, of course, did not help calm down at all, but, on the contrary, only intensified the neurosis. People who were already likely to be nervous, such as those with a family history of brain tumors, were even more anxious.
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Let’s not forget what is called the Barnum effect, known as the subjective confirmation effect. It is as follows: people, reading this or that description, often come to the conclusion that it suits them perfectly, and they correspond to it. Thus, it seems to us that the horoscopes for different signs of the zodiac work, and the descriptions of diseases seem to be written directly from us. A person finds in himself all the symptoms of the disease, revealing even those signs that did not appear before.
It’s Cyberhnodria!
The neurosis caused by the results of an Internet search has already found its own name, scientists speak of cyberchondria – a special, modern form of hypochondria. Getting information is now much easier than before: you don’t need to go to the library, study medical encyclopedias, just surf the Internet for a few minutes.
Yet there is a veritable chasm between ordinary interest and cyberchondria. You are definitely a Cyberchondriac if:
- Long and frequent Google symptoms;
- you can’t stop looking and you read more and more about diseases;
- the very process of research makes you nervous;
- you spend a lot of time searching, and because of the results you get, your usual course of life is disrupted: you sleep badly, eat too much or too little, no longer communicate with your friends, and you cannot concentrate on work or business.
All cyberchondriacs can be divided into two large groups. Some are so concerned about their health that they go online and then offline, looking for a doctor who can confirm the terrible diagnosis. They go for the first, second, third and subsequent opinions, bypassing the experts one by one. A lot of time, money and nerves are spent on tests, examinations and visits to the doctor, anxiety increases and a diagnosis cannot be made. In this case, there is a risk of running into a fraudulent doctor who always diagnoses something and prescribes questionable treatment. In addition, it will cause a new, even stronger neurosis, increase anxiety.
The second group of cyberchondriacs, on the contrary, does not go to any doctor. They just Google, get a terrible diagnosis, and don’t go to the doctor, fearing that a terrible disease has been confirmed. Such tactics carry the risk of missing out on a really serious illness. Neurosis and anxiety will go nowhere.
What to do if you have cyberchondria
