Raising Awareness About a Disease Called Cyberchondria

Cyberchondria and Health Anxiety

A decade ago, Cyberchondria wouldn’t have been something that doctors worried about, much less known about. However, due to today’s technological advancement and technological reach, this has become a common disease in many households. Today, the world wide web has become something that is accessible to anyone, anywhere, and at anytime, so much that we can find out what is happening on the other side of the world in just a matter of minutes. The World Wide Web or the Internet is something that serves so many different purposes and it has become something that everyone relies on in their everyday lives. However, even with all the positive aspects that the internet provides us, there are still prone to be some downside to the Internet as well.

One of these downsides is the new found disease called Cyberchondria. Today, Cyberchondria is a major concern for many health examiners as patients will go online researching their diseases and something as simple as a funny looking mole can be diagnosed as melanoma, or a migraine can become a brain tumor. As a result of the internet, Cyberchondria and health anxiety has become a common symptom in many patients. Generally, everyone today will have health anxiety to some degree because of the vast medical knowledge accessible out there, however, health anxiety and Cyberchondria will start to become an issue when the patients start to obsess over every aspect of their health; to the point where this obsession begins to interfere with their everyday lives.

Spreading Awareness on Cyberchondria

Spreading awareness for Cyberchondria is essential as now more and more people are using the internet. Kids of all ages, along with adults rely on the internet to get their information and today some of these information includes their health information. With more on more people relying on the internet in order to receive fast and reliable information, diseases such as Cyberchondria has become more of a common household name. Today, about 80% of American internet users have searched for health-related information online and out of all of these people only 15% of them checks the sources and the date of the information that they are viewing. This is especially a huge issue as this means that only 85% of the Americans who are researching for information online are making sure that they are receiving information from reliable sources. This shows that a lot of the people who are researching their own diseases are misinformed, therefore, to make sure people are getting information from reliable sources it is critical that people become more aware of Cyberchondria and how misleading information could lead to health anxiety and paranoia within patients.

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