Human Opinion

The internet: saving lives or encouraging hypochondriacs?

We’ve all done it. Had an ache, pain or health grumble and headed to Google. With endless internet pages telling us about every medical condition known to man, the question is – is this giving people information that could save their lives or egging on the hypochondriacs among us?

The place to go with a 
health question?

I think one of the best things to hit the internet is NHS choices. Informative and factual, this website is reliable and allows us   to understand health problems, their causes, symptoms and treatments. This also encourages people with minor ailments such as the common cold not to visit their doctor and cuts down the increasing number of time wasters draining the NHS of funds and resources needed to treat people who are   actually ill. The cold is a virus and there is nothing a doctor   can do but to tell you to rest and keep hydrated – exactly what the NHS choices website tells you. This website doesn’t just stop people going to the doctors unnecessarily, but encourages us to see the GP at times when we really should get something checked out – in some cases for things we may otherwise have put off going to the doctor for.  Here, I say clever internet.

But this is just one website. If you Google a cough, the snippet of writing under the third website down shows “coughing is a common reflex, which can indicate other more serious problems”. Now, from a distant view this is a reasonable sentence. On the other hand, if you are concerned about a cough, which is generally why you search it on the internet, you are undoubtedly going to glaze over the words ‘common reflex’ and immediately focus on the two words ‘serious problems’. Although a website may say your problem is most likely nothing but rarely it could be cancer, as soon as the ‘C word’ is mentioned that’s all that’s needed to set off the angst in most of us.

I don't think this definition
made it into the Oxford
 English Dictionary...

And some websites aren’t even as balanced as the above, giving truly misleading and inaccurate information, suggesting old wives tails that just don’t work, and can give some dangerous advice. Reliability is a crucial flaw of the internet. Pages like Wikipedia (which I think is a great concept to spread knowledge, as any students will agree) can be detrimental when it comes to medical issues, as anyone can change the information written. And unfortunately the fact that anyone can write on the internet means that there will always be websites exploiting people’s fears for money. I personally am one to Google any health queries and often find scare mongering websites. Funnily enough, many of these websites seem to endorse certain products, magic creams and potions which can cure your pain…all for the small cost of...you get the idea.  Money makes the world go round and inspiring fear is an easy way to make some sales.

As with anything in life, this issue isn’t black and white, this is a typical grey area with both pros and cons. However, if I had to sit on one side of the www. Fence, I would have to side with the fact that the internet is a scare mongering, inaccurate, money making source of knowledge when it comes to health. I say if you're truly concerned, head to the doctor before heading to Google.

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