Did you know that cyberchondria is an actual term?
Cyberchondria, loosely defined as the baseless fueling of fears and anxiety about common health symptoms due to Internet research, or, as I like to think of it, Googling oneself into a state of absolute, clinical hysteria over every last pain, itch and strange freckle on your body.
The article also includes a link to a 2008 paper from Microsoft Research: “Cyberchondria: Studies of the Escalation of Medical Concerns in Web Search (36 pages; PDF).”
The article continues with an analysis of the results presented in the paper and an interview with one of the authors.
Source: Washington Post
This entry was posted
on Monday, November 9th, 2009 and is filed under Information Literacy, Information Seeking.
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