Cyberchondria

It's a modern phenomenon. Where does the inclination to self-diagnose come from? Do we now live in a society where we believe medical staff are not as educated or as important as they once were? That's nonsense.

Realistically, it most likely stems from the idea of laziness. If something is not completely urgent, we will inevitably deal with it in the easiest way possible. Which makes sense, for most things. However, typing your symptoms into a search engine and believing the results (which 90% of the time offers a much worse diagnosis that in reality) it gives you is complete lunacy. Another argument for googling symptoms instead of visiting a hospital would be embarrassment.

Generally speaking, and statistically in men, if an ailment is more embarrassing than dangerous, Dr Google is sufficient (check the dotted line as a guide) -

There is a reason there are highly educated and extensively trained people to do this. The internet plays fast and loose with facts as it is. Let's not give it anymore power, especially when it comes to our health. In cases of anything potentially being wrong with our health, we really should be referring to this dotted line -

If there's even the slightest chance of something being life-threatening, we really should be visiting the hospital.

A recent case study showed that a man 'googled' his symptoms of a: headache, exhaustion and back ache. Somehow the conclusion he came to, within seconds of reading online, was a brain aneurism. He consulted his solicitor (strange that he trusted a professional with this one?!) to write his will, planned most of his funeral and even contacted the company handling his life insurance policy to claim early. In reality, he was under the weather and 3 days later, he was fine. Insanity.

Can you imagine a world in which people instantly believe anything they read online to be fact? I'm pretty sure we're living in it - too often, a headline is read without the article, one persons' opinion is taken as gospel, or words are misinterpreted to mean something completely different. It's about time we took a moment to research a bit more of the facts and put a little more faith in people that are experts in their field.

This can't be emphasised enough - doctors and nurses are there for a reason. Stop believing everything Dr Google tells you.