In the contemporary era, the Internet has emerged as a widespread source to various medical conditions. I will firstly discuss why it is the case and its detrimental effects on individuals.
A variety of factors have contributed to the rise in the rates of this tendency. Due to growing reliance on technology and easy access to information, people use the Internet a lot. With a mere click, people could elicit a wide range of data about their problems. However, it is not certain whether they are searching it correctly or not. The reason why it might be incorrect is people’s lack of medical knowledge. Normally, when people have the pain inside, they are just looking at their body from outside and start to guess the organ. Then they are searching about this organ and different reasons around the pain. But what if they are not looking for correct organ?! Moreover, people with limited financial resources are more likely to search for medical advice online. However, while they are trying to save their money, they jeopardize the health. For instance, the empirical evidence from USA in 1990s indicates that, because of the unreliable information from Internet, some people haven’t taken their disease seriously which detoriorated the condition.
Looking for the medical treatments on Internet has negative consequences on health issues. It might delay seeking professional treatment and mislead patients. When people seach for symptoms they feel, Internet or AI powered apps could show this issue as an “unnecessary” problem even if it is life-threatening disease. Once patients believe Internet, they are going to be unwilling for hospitals and choose the way that looks available at the click of a button. To give an example, a local hospital in Canada says they have experienced such a situation. Patient with chest pain had assumed it was only indigestion after reading information online, whereas it was actually a heart attack. This findings alone is adequate in order not to believe everything we read online.
To conclude, convenience and flexibility are the major causes for searching medical problems online however the results create and even make worse our health issues.