Cyberchondria is a word derived from a combination of cyberspace and hypochondria. And it’s a condition I have personally experienced. Microsoft has recently published the results of a study on cyberchondria, which shows that the Web can be a far from healthy place to obtain symptom information.

The Internet is, of course, a fount of knowledge, with information on every topic under the sun. This includes health concerns, with a wealth of websites dedicated solely to explaining all about illnesses, both minor and serious. They also usually list symptoms and try to match those with known conditions.

The problem comes when a person with an overactive imagination and a propensity to expect the worst finds themselves on such a site. A very common symptom such as a headache or chest pains could suddenly become a brain tumor or a heart condition.

Microsoft researchers Ryen White and Eric Horvitz conducted the study in to cyberchondria in an effort to add features to the company’s search service. So they asked 500 Microsoft employees and an anonymized sample of regular Web users about their Web search activities relating to health.

The results are rather unsurprising, showing that people readily turn to the Web in order to better understand the symptoms they are suffering from. But rather than discovering the symptom they are experiencing points to something minor, a lot of people delve deeper in to the search results and discover they are dying from some horrible illness, even if they aren’t.

Humans have as innate ability to fear the worst, and when searching the Web over medical concerns, this leads to an escalation of health worries. When faced with a series of conditions linked to a symptom, people are much more likely to focus on the worst case scenario, and through further Internet surfing, convince themselves they haven’t long left in this world.

The report makes for an interesting read but it doesn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, mainly because I have experienced cyberchondria at first hand. After a quick search on the Web to try and determine what was causing a pain between my shoulder blades, I convinced myself I had a spinal tumor. Two years later, I’m still here. In the end, I went to the doctor, was informed it was pinched nerves due to my job, and was referred to a physiotherapist.

My advice to anyone seeking medical advice on the Web: don’t. Give your general practitioner a ring instead as there’s a reason they spent years studying to become a doctor.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at 11:19 pm under Health, Internet, Microsoft, Opinion.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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