Everyone's a Doctor...

In the past weeks, the subject of the "new media" and it's relation to our everyday lives has been mostly frivolous and focused on things such as games, music and television. However, this week's topic is a lot more serious. It has now become incredibly easy to diagnose medical problems, simply by "Googling" the symptons. No doubt somebody else out there has had the same symptoms and documented them online, just waiting for somebody else to find.

Tania Lewis states, "...the internet would seem to represent the ultimate site for disseminating health information to ‘lay’ people...", and she is absolutely right. It seems that anyone can be a doctor these days, that's not to say that doctors will become redundant, as obviously, that would never happen. It does mean that the layman will be able to know more about themselves and their body much easier than before the new media changed everything.

Is this "self-diagnosis" more dangerous than it seems? It could be, indeed. Medical information obtained from an unidentified individual may not always be the most accurate, in fact, it could be completely wrong and have dire results.

I for one, have used the internet to diagnose some minor medical conditions, however, would I rely on it for serious conditions? Probably not.



References

Lewis, T. (2006). Seeking health information on the internet: lifestyle choice or bad attack of cyberchondria? In Media, Culture & Society, volume 28, issue 4: 521-539.