Positive Trends

The internet has also followed a trend that the world offline created. This is the culture of those fascinated with all aspects of health. In some ways this has been a very positive creation. People are learning how to take care of themselves. It is also giving the average person access to an unlimited supply of information. Nowadays, anyone with a health concern can log onto the internet and literally diagnose themselves without the painful trip to the doctors’ office. “Health consumers are becoming more medically literate’, therefore challenging the traditional balance of power in the doctor–patient relationship” (Lewis, Tania). This availability to medical information could also cause several problems with people who do not know how to differentiate those sites that are reputable and have accurate information and those sites that are advertisements or just plain opinions. People could end up in serious medical situations which they would not have experienced if they had gone to the doctors’ office in person to be diagnosed by a professional. Taking these situations in your own hands and relying on websites for this kind of information could be very dangerous. There are “concerns about the enormous amount of information on the internet that consumers must negotiate, as well as the blurred boundaries between medical and advertising advice” (Lewis, Tania). The internet culture of health concerned people also creates another problem, obsession with health. Sometimes this large amount of information can be fascinating and almost addicting. Some are even labeling these people with “current obsession with researching one’s symptoms on the web as ‘the Internet disease’ or ‘printout syndrome’” (Lewis, Tania). I feel that almost anyone is subject to these diseases, especially those with a lot of time on their hands.